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Solos Smart Glasses

1,401 bytes added, 10:55, 20 April 2020
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* The materials feel cheap, which is disappointing in a $500 product. I think this is a result of trying to make the glasses light.
* The glasses don't have folding arms, which makes storage and transportation trickier. I worry about breaking them.
* The battery life is short, though it's probably plenty for most runners at 6 hours. I'm not sure if 6 hours is accurate, and I'll do some battery testing when I get time. It looks like the Solos can be charged in use, which might make them viable for ultrarunning.
* There are two lenses: a dark gray for sun and a yellow for low light. The yellow is not idea for running in the dark.
* You must run with your smartphone, and have their app recording your workout to get data displayed. There is an auto-start and auto-pause, which helps a little. If you don't run with your smartphone (or don't have one) then the Solos won't work for you. That said, I'm guessing anyone looking to spend $500 on smart glasses will have a smartphone!
* Having another Bluetooth headset paired is annoying when you want to use a quality headset. I have the Apple Powerbeats Pro, and I must manually select the audio output device.
* The built-in speakers sound like a cheap radio playing in the next room. They have earbuds, but I've not tried those yet.
* The microphone can be used to voice control the display, but not your phone. So , no Siri integration for when I'm playing music.
* The screen appears to be about arm's length away. This means your eyes change focus point when moving between the screen and the ground.
* It would have been great if the Solos glasses supported the remote display that's part of Ant+. It would make them simpler and easier to use.
* I didn't find them heavy at 65 grams, and they stayed in place reasonably well.
* I've not had a chance to try the Solos in cold weather. I could see batter cold weather battery life being an issue, and wearing these glasses under a hat could be awkward. * The display is over my right eye, which happens to be my dominant eye. If you wanted the display over your left eye, you're out of luck. =Images=<gallery widths=600px heights=300px class="center">File:Solos (3).jpg| The Solos glasses look rather odd with the display arm. File:Solos (4).jpg| Here you see the display is in the articulated arm, and it's piped via a clear plastic tube to your eye. File:Solos (5).jpg| There are two articulating joints to move the display up and down, then change the angle. There's also a left/right offset, but that doesn't change the position of the image, it just aligns the pipe so you can see the display. File:Solos (6).jpg| There are controls under the right arm for up/down and a toggle. The function changes with mode; but the toggle is start/stop/lap plus some other functions, the up down changes the data display. File:Solos (7).jpg| The tiny speakers are on each arm. File:Solos (1).jpg| This is the best way I can think of to show you how the display works. It's like looking down a tube at the display, so when everything's lined up, you can see nicely…File:Solos (2).jpg| …but if things get out of line, the display gets clipped. </gallery>
=The Other Options=
The Garmin Varia Vision are discontinued, and people report they worked okay for cycling but bounced too much to be usable when running. Likewise, people reported that Everysight's Raptor are too heavy (~100g) and bounce too much to be useful running, and they only market them to cyclists. The only smart glasses marketed for running are the Solos, so I purchased a pair to try. <br/>
I got this rather nice message from Everysight when I asked about running in their Raptors. I like it when a company doesn't oversell its products. "''Thanks so much for reaching out and for your interest in the Everysight Raptor. At this time, Raptor is intended specifically for use with cycling. As we continue, we will be developing models for all consumers, not just cyclists. We also know that many cyclists do run as well, and we are looking forward to continuing to evolve the product for as many use cases as possible and enabling it to work perfectly for runners is high on our list of priorities. Technically, Raptor does work with running, but since the experience has not been perfected for runners, we would not want to sell people a product that wouldn't give them the best experience available. We would want to make slight ergonomic changes and other modifications to enable a better experience for other users''."