Workaholic's dream gadget: Goggles that let you read emails as you ski down the slopes



Device sees emails or text beamed to screen in front of your eyes

Goggles also display speed, location, altitude and distance travelled

Users can play music stored through the gadget

It is the gadget that every workaholic will be clamouring for – a pair of ski goggles that let you read your emails while on the slopes.

The £500 Oakley Airwave has a fighter pilot-style screen on the inside of the lens, displaying a skier’s speed, location, altitude and distance travelled as they zoom down the slopes.

The goggles can also connect to an iPhone or Android phone or tablet, transmitting incoming calls to an earpiece.



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Ski-tech: Oakley's Airwave goggles let you read emails on the slopes, as well as listen to music, make phone calls via a connection and study piste maps

Pilot style screen: The £500 goggles have a head-up display which show a skier's speed, location, altitude and distance travelled

Text messages or emails can be beamed straight onto the screen in front of the skier’s eyes.



Users can play music stored on their phone, flicking through playlists with a wireless controller worn on the wrist.

An accompanying Airwave app allows skiers or snowboarders to choose from 600 resort piste maps, and includes a ‘buddy’ setting to track friends or relatives on the slopes.

The technology harnesses the power of the latest generation of smartphones, utilising the gadgets’ GPS, communications and entertainment technology and transferring it onto the surface of the goggles via Bluetooth.



Data is shown on a display in the corner of the skier’s vision, with the effect of viewing a 14-inch screen from 5ft away.

The goggles, launched yesterday, were well received.



Patrick Mallory, of US magazine Freshness, said: ‘You may not be cruising at 20,000ft with rockets attached to your wings. but Airwave goggles are the first step to giving you the futuristic heads-up display enjoyed by fighter pilots.’

Hand controls: The goggles come with a controller worn on the wrist that allows a user to flick through playlists and songs as they ski

Oakley chief executive Colin Baden said: ‘Airwave represents the power and possibility of technology.’

Mr Baden said the Heads Up technology - which could possibly be adapted to fit into sunglasses - had been 15 years in the making.

‘As an organisation, we’ve been chasing this beast since 1997,’ he said earlier this year.