Recon Jet smart glasses ideal for exercise but watches better

I’ve been pounding pavements on my runs wearing a set of hi-tech smart glasses that is practical on the go.

I’ve been pounding pavements on runs around Sydney’s Erskineville area wearing a set of hi-tech smart glasses that look frightening enough to scare away the dogs as I go.

I am one of the lucky few to try out the long awaited Recon Jet, one of the emerging breed of new age smart glasses. You can buy them online already, but its maker, Recon Instruments, tell me it’s coming to a local outlet soon.

The Jet is a bit like Google Glass, although it actually has built-in lenses.

My review Jet came with dark lenses but you can choose coloured or clear ones. Recon says in future you might be able to use prescription lenses too.

We’ll wait and see. But it’s good that Jet is versatile and you can disassemble the components (lenses, battery) as required.

Compared to Google Glass, the Jet is a less ambitious product that targets cyclists and runners. When you put Jet on, you see a small display in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen which shows metrics such as pace or speed, distance, duration and calories burned.

You can configure exactly what metrics show but I did prefer Google’s placement of its display at the top of the right eye as I only had to refocus rather than move my eyes downward.

But Recon argues it’s safer and obscures little of your vision. Jet lets you adjust the display’s position for optimal viewing. For those of us with reading glass, the good news is the display remains reasonably crisp and clear thanks to clever optics. But if you wear spectacles, you’d be mad not to try Jet before buying them.

The guts of Jet is a small computer beside the display with an awful lot of electronics packed into such a tiny device. There’s a 1 Gigahertz dual core processor, 8 Gigabytes of flash memory, in-built GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB2.0, camera and a swag of sensors. If you have a heart-rate monitor or another ANT device, you can connect that to Jet too. It also has dual microphones and a speaker.

The menu system is on the right-hand arm, pressing backward on a toggle switch lets you switch power on and you can move backwards through menus. Pressing it forward lets you select menu items. There’s also small trackpad on the side.

The Jet’s other major feature is its point-and-shoot 2.1 megapixel camera. Photo quality was what you’d expect with a 2.1mp camera — OK but hardly comparable with a modern smartphone’s.

Jet also can be used to select tracks and control music volume on your smart device and it will display simplified maps suitable for the form factor. There’s also provision for 3rd party developers to come aboard but the app sphere has little to offer just yet.

You charge Jet through its USB2.0 connector. The battery life is more than acceptable for a single exercise session but if you intend to wear the Jet for long periods, then you only a get a few hours.

Like other wearables, Jet syncs with a smartphone or computer. The Recon Engage app for iOS and Android devices can share data and when exercising, your position with friends. One highlight is the excellent presentation of past exercise metrics, including maps. The web version of Engage reconstructs you moving along your route. It’s very polished.

Updating the Jet is like using the traditional iTunes store program. You can customise Jet on your computer and then sync the changes to it using the Recon Uplink program. Firmware updates are completed the same way.

Overall I found Jet practical to use on the go. The arms and nose piece are flexible, so you can adjust them to ensure it fits snugly. It’s certainly fine for running, walking and cycling, but it’s not lightweight enough for serious competition.

I had a problem with Jet’s GPS. Connecting to satellites takes an age and in one run, I didn’t connect at all. I later found this was due to it using AGPS (assisted GPS), which requires it being fed a local configuration file before locating satellites.

When I reset the AGPS file, GPS worked OK but this proved quite a manual process. Provided I keep using Jet in the same region this problem doesn’t re-emerge but travelling more than 100km means I do it again.

Downloading photos and video with Jet connected to a PC by cable isn’t smooth either but I succeeded eventually. It was easier to access Jet’s hard drive as a normal external hard drive in OSX Finder or Windows Explorer.

My big reservation is that the use case of smart glasses in general has been gazumped by wrist-based activity trackers. Jet was conceived in 2008, well before the era of smart watches, Fitbit and the Jawbone Up. Maybe the original designers didn’t foresee the smartwatch revolution.

At $899 Jet is a bit above half the cost of Glass but is expensive when compared to $100 wrist-based wearables.

Price: $899 plus postage

Rating: 7.5/10