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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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I've wanted a heads up display for running for some years. Having a constant display of my pace and power would be wonderful and being reminding of my heart rate would be useful too. I've only had them for a short time, but here are (I’ve replaced my initial thoughtsSolos glasses with [[ActiveLook Smart Glasses]]. )
* While they have many flaws, having a constant display of pace, power, heart rate, and cadence is as awesome as I'd expected. It allows me to stay at my goal intensity, and I think that's going to improve my training. I can detect when I'm easing up or going too hard and adjust early. The synergy with [[Stryd]] is huge (see below.)
* I find the display especially useful in the dark. I find I run slower in the dark, possibly because I don't have the visual pace cues. Having a continuous power display offsets this problem and I'm more consistent. Another situation is during interval training, where I find keeping my effort where I want it is tricky. As fatigue builds up during the interval, my sense of effort is distorted.
* If Solos stops supporting these glasses, they're useless without the App. If they supported the Garmin remote display, they'd be useful even if the company support disappeared.
* It's not clear if Solos are still in business. Their support email address bounces and their customer support number is disconnected. The certificate for https://solos-wearables.com/ expired April 14, 2020 which indicates their web site is not being adequately managed (it's 4/21/2020 as I write.) Their last "in the news" update was May 20, 2019, and there are no updates to their Twitter or Facebook accounts in over a year.
* The display is tricky to see. While part of the problem is the glasses bouncing slightly as I run, that's not the main issue. To understand how the display works, imaging putting your cell phone in the bottom of a cereal box. If you look directly into the box, you can see fine, but move your head up or down and the top of the box will clip the screen. That's what happens a lot with the Solos. You are looking down a clear plastic pipe that transmits and reflects the display that's off to the side. The solos display arm has several bendable joints which allow you to align the display, but I found they didn't have enough adjustment. Running with Powerbeats Pro makes things worse as these earbuds have arms over your ears, which compete with the Solos arms for space over your ears.
* The software feels like a late beta rather than a polished product.
* It's not clear if there are coding problems or if the glasses lack processing power. The controls to change display are unpredictably unresponsive. Sometimes the display will update in a second or so, other times it can take more than 30 seconds. Sometime the screen only half update, showing me half of one metric at the top and the half of another metric at the bottom.
* 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 nose bridge is sticky and stays in place well unless you're sweating heavily. * The battery life is short, though it's probably plenty for most runners at 6 hours. I'm not sure if 6 found the battery lasted about 5 hours is accuratewithout playing any audio and in warm weather, and I'll do some battery testing when I get timebut only just over 4 hours with audio streaming. It looks like the * The Solos can be charged in use, which might make makes them viable for ultrarunning. In my testing, they seemed to recharge fairly quickly, so you wouldn't have to run with them plugged in for long. * 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, and the display is a little brighter than I'd like when running at night.
* 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!
* The display is a little smaller than I expected, but the resolution and color saturation are quite good.
* You can set target pace, power, heart rate, and cadence. The fields are then color coded to show if you're in the target range, which is nice as you can see the color in your peripheral vision. The huge downside is that Solos uses an average value for each of them, not your current instantaneous value.
* Solos wants to own your run data. They want to record your workout and publish it to Strava and other sites, rather than acting as an accessory.
* I've had the Solos iPhone app crash onceperiodically. The glasses stopped updating and the app lost all details of my workout to that point. I had to restart the app on the iPhone and restart the workout. * The addition of speakers and microphone increase cost , weight, size, and complexity. I really wished they hadn't bothered.
* 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 earbudsconnected by a USB cable to the glasses. The earbuds are like the earbuds that come with an iPhone; not terrible, but I've not tried those yetgreat either.
* 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.
