The Big Interview – Winter Sports

Oliver Springgay, general manager at Recon Instruments Europe, discusses how technology could have played a part in the recent expansion of winter sports. 

Has the recent evolution and expansion of snowboarding and winter sports in general been aided by advances in technology?

Technology plays an integral role in all sports, particularly action sports. Goggle brands are always striving to come out with best lens technology, ski brands releasing the best ski technology –  look at Salomon BBR’s – then you have the advances in safety technology like avalanche airbags or transceivers, the list goes on. 

The recent popularity of free skiing taking the industry by storm has ensured advances in technology have been quick and it will continue that way.

The technology seems to have come a long way quickly – when did science fiction become fact?

Head Up Displays (HUDs) have been imagined in films like Terminator or James Bond in the past, but the emergence of mobile technology has brought the idea to life. At Recon we’ve introduced the world’s first HUD, called MOD Live, to the market, providing action sports athletes with real-time statistics, communications information and sensory data direct-to-eye via an unobtrusive display.

What our products do is to deliver a unique on-mountain experience to the end user. 

Users can see statistics from their runs – including speed, jump statistics, distance travelled and temperature – as well as locate where they and friends are in a resort through Recon’s navigation functionality. 

The system integrates wirelessly with smartphones via Bluetooth giving the user the ability to view SMS, caller ID and their music playlists without removing the phone from their pocket. It also connects wirelessly to other third party devices, for instance point-of-view video cameras from Contour and heart-rate monitors from Polar.

Recon has partnered with some of the world’s leading eyewear brands to make this happen, enabling us to concentrate on the technology. The goggle partners like Scott, Smith, Uvex, Zeal Optics, Alpina and Briko have provided the platform to make this HUD technology wearable.

The popularity of HUDs reflects how the snow sports market has adopted technology over the past decade. This is no more apparent than with the number of POV cameras being worn on-hill from companies such as GoPro and Contour. People want to capture and share their experiences and the rise of social media has enabled this – that’s why we created Recon HQ where users can download, re-live and share their experiences online.

How much further can the technology go? 

Our HUDs are currently available in the snow sport market, but there are advanced plans for Recon to enter into biking, motorcycling and endurance sports – we are customising our technology to allow it to fit into helmets, goggles and sunglasses.

It runs off the Android operating system and we are opening up a software development kit which will allow third party app developers to create apps which can be uploaded to MOD Live. Two examples of this are the Polar and Contour apps. Via Bluetooth the HUD connects to specific Polar heart monitors or Contour POV video cameras. This allows the user to see their heart rate in real-time or transforms the HUD into a viewfinder respectively. Third party partnerships such as these show how other companies are also pushing the boundaries and innovating.

With MOD Live and the new markets Recon will be entering, the technology can go a very long way. 

What obstacles did you come across when designing the goggles – health and safety for instance?

The main obstacles we encountered were designing the HUD display small enough to fit into goggles – and not affect the aesthetics and size of the goggles – whilst remaining robust and maintaining optimal battery life. 

From a health and safety point of view, the location of the HUD, in the bottom right hand corner of the goggle frame, was positioned purposefully to ensure it remains an active choice to look at the screen when it is safe to do so. It needed to be not distracting or obtrusive when concentrating on riding and this was an important part of our R&D process.

Would you say the popularity of the recent Winter X-Games is a good example of the popularity behind the sport?

I think you can look at the popularity of events such as X-Games and the emergence and growth of smaller events such as the Freeride World proving the popularity behind snowsports. Also, the Vancouver Winter Olympics was a great success and helped boost the profile of the sport, especially with events like ski cross hitting the headlines and really capturing everybody’s imagination. The Winter Olympics needed this and it was great to see. Now we all have Sochi to look forward to!

The UK has been hit by the recent ‘Olympic’ boom following the award of the hosting rights for this year’s Games – do you expect the winter Olympic Games to prosper in the UK market because of this?

I think the Winter Olympics is becoming more exciting to the UK market following the Vancouver Winter Games and because of the Summer Olympic buzz. I certainly hope the summer hype rubs off and people look forward to Sochi 2014 as they should do. The Winter Olympics demonstrates such great skill and bravery there is a lot to be excited about. Sochi 2014 will be doing their bit in London this summer to ensure this opportunity isn’t missed.

How does the UK compare with markets in more traditional snowboarding areas such as mainland Europe or North America? 

We do sell worldwide and are available in the major retailers across the globe which has been a great success story for us in our first year with an end-consumer product. The UK market has been a major one for Recon. There may not be the facilities to ski as you would have on the continent or in North America but Brits love to ski and when people are spending a lot of money on a holiday they want to make the best of their experience.

Europe has had great snow in parts this winter and people have been heading to the Alps to make the most of it despite the economic climate, and our UK sales have supported this. You just have to visit the Alps and see the thousands of British holidaymakers on the slope to see how popular skiing is in the UK

Obviously the merchandise is seasonal – how do you as a brand split your time and funding between sales/marketing and research/development?

Marketing, sales and R&D all go hand-in-hand. Our market research defines what the public wants to purchase which then ties into the R&D to ensure the product is what the market is demanding. Recon HQ, our social media platform, allows this direct feedback from our customers to the engineering team so improvements and changes can be made to the software constantly to enhance the experience. 

As we said before, although our current offering is seasonal and currently only available in the snow sports industry, we will be bringing out HUDs in the biking, motorcycle and sunglasses markets very soon which eliminates this seasonal cycle for Recon. 

And you can check out snowboarding champ Stephan Hausl testing the Recon MOD Live at this year’s Freeride World Tour at Sport Industry TV.