Snowboard HUD Part 10 - Summary

This is the last post (for a while) in this series on hacking together a pair of Heads-Up-Display snowboard goggles. At some point in the future I might revisit this and add in some more sensors and update the display -- I still haven't added in the temperature sensor and there are some really easy things to do in Python to add more functionality (e.g. keeping track of maximum speed, stopwatch functionality etc). This picture shows all the components put together.

This video shows the goggles now that I've hot glued the MyVu components in. It's a bit of a mess and probably needs another layer of foam added around the outside to hide all the glue and put a bit more separation between your face and the MyVu.

I've also recorded one more video showing the view through the goggles.

So in summary, it seems it is possible to hack together something that approximates a pair of Heads-Up-Display snowboard goggles. Although I'm not too sure about actually carrying around all that kit for real.

Also probably best not to be strapping things to your face that could poke out your eyes during an accident. 

The full listing of parts for my hacked together version is below...

Raspberry Pi - RS Components £25.92
SD Card - RS Components - £7.79
Anker Astro 3E 10000mAh battery pack - Amazon - £29.99
2013 Rayzor Pro Goggles - Amazon - £19.59
Ultimate GPS Breakout - Cool Components - £28.54
MyVu glasses - ebay - about £40
USB to TTL to UART RS232 COM Cable - Anmazon £4.66
Various USB cables, bits of wire etc. less than £5

So the total for all this would be about £160! Thankfully I had a lot of this already anyway from other projects. I guess it shows that the Recon glasses are actually quite good value for the technology that you are getting and the functionality that it offers.

If I end up getting a pair of the proper Recon goggles I'll have a play with the SDK and see what else interesting could be done with a properly engineered product!

Oh, and #IfIHadGlass, I'd start with reimplementing this, before getting on to a load of other projects I'd like to try :)

Snowboard HUD Part 9 - Field Test 1

I'm going to take the glasses out today and try them outside with the battery pack. Before that I thought I'd make a quick summary of the setup and show all the components finally put together.

Below is a video showing all the wearable components in my jacket (sorry the video is a bit shaky).

The first video from inside the glasses is below. I'm not that happy with it really. I will try to make a better one when I get some time over the next couple of days.

Snowboard HUD Part 8 - Goggle integration

The goggles I'm going to try and integrate this HUD with are 2013 Rayzor Pro from Amazon. More details are here. I actually bought these to go snowboarding, so I've just ordered another pair so that it doesn't matter that I'm about to destroy the first pair that I bought.

I spent quite a lot of time trying to get the displays to sit at the bottom of the goggles so that you look down to see the display

The problem is that without separating the two displays, i.e. breaking the central part of the MyVu (and I don't know what runs through the middle), for the displays to be low enough to not obstruct your actual view, the plastic hits your nose when the goggles are on.

Eventually I started think about whether the displays could sit at the top of the goggles. There is already a large area that isn't visible (some foam and vents) so I started trying to fix the displays in position at the top of the goggles.

I cut some holes in the foam so the cables for display and earphones cold easily come out of the goggles. I haven't found a good way of holding the displays in place yet so I've just opted for some temporary fixes to see if it all works. You can just see the HUD being displayed in the picture below.

It looks really clunky in the picture, but when you wear it it actually hardly obstructs your view at all.

I have a short video where I've tried to capture what you see but it is quite hard to film. Any ideas to make this better please let me know.

Snowboard HUD Part 7 - MyVu Disassembly

I've finally got to the point where I need to dismantle the MyVu glasses....

Basically after a combination of prising bits of plastic off, the occasional M5 screw that can be removed, I managed to get most of the casing removed. Sorry I didn't create a proper set of instructions on how to dismantle but I didn't really know what I was doing until it was finished.

The front bit of plastic was quite easy just to prise off using a screwdriver.

There are then some M5 screws on the bottom that are accessible

You can also get access to another two screws under plastic caps. One came out easily, the other I drilled out.

at which point most of the plastic can be removed

I kept testing to make sure that nothing I had done had broken a connection to the display.

I thought I was going to just use one of the screens but if I disconnected the brown ribbon cable from any the second screen the first one didn't display either. Therefore I'm going to have to (for now) integrate both screens into the goggles.

After removing as much of the plastic as I could and stripping the arms I've ended up with this:

I then taped up most of the loose and exposed cables. I now need to figure out if it can be embedded in some goggles...

Snowboard HUD Part 3 - Basic Components

What I'm going to first is just think about some of the components. I'm ignoring all the sensors here which wil get added as we progress.

Display

In terms of the display what I have lying around is a pair of MyVu Solo Plus video display glasses. I think mine were from e-bay for about £35. It is definitely possible to pull the LCDs out of these glasses because it's been done on Hack a Day. For now I'm going to leave the LCDs inside the MyVu though.

Edit: also found this on instructables (http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-wearable-computer), which is encouraging to see the idea isn't completely daft.



Processing

For processing data, running the display etc. I think I'm going to use a Raspberry Pi (at least for now). It will output composite display, which is what the MyVu wants. It should also be very easy to program, and allow connection of other sensors. In addition to the Pi, as standard I tend to get an Edimax Nano USB Wifi dongle, just becasue it makes interaction with the Pi easier (mine was from Amazon).