#HTE

This Bike Helmet Signals, Navigates & Livestreams Your Commute

Brooklyness is hoping to make biking smarter with the Classon Helmet, and judging by their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign they’re doing a decent job so far. This 21st century safety hat incorporates front and rear facing cameras, brake and turn lights, blind spot motion detection, video recording, and even navigation signaling. 

The helmet’s design takes cues from the modern auto industry and makes its tech comfortably human-scale, offering simple safety features without too much distraction from the ride. A brake light kicks on automatically when it senses a drop in speed, and turn signals trip when you use simple hand gestures. 

The HD front and rear cameras can record as much of your commute as you want, for up to 6 hours of footage. If you’ve ever wished you could share your memory of a collision as easily as a Russian dashcam video, this should speak to your soul. Meanwhile the side sensors relay information about approaching objects to the front display. The display itself is minimal, with small LEDs banded around the brim. The outward facing design appears to minimize downward glare, which could be an unpleasant distraction particularly at night. 

The Classon helmet can be controlled via Bluetooth and the linked app. This lets you input destination data for navigation or even livestream video of your ride. Getting the helmet and app makes you eligible for the Classon club, which costs $9.99 per month and provides access to these online services as well as a “free” replacement program for crash-damaged helmets.

To accomplish its suite of tech tasks the Classon packs in a 1Ghz processor, accelerometer, gesture detectors, HD camera, battery with 2.5 hours of life, and 4GB internal memory. It meets safety standards, resists moisture, and weighs around 1.1 pound. 

As you might expect, this payload of modern gadgets doesn’t make for a cheap MSRP: the early bird price is $150, and the eventual cost will be $299. To make you more comfortable wearing around a piece of valuable equipment they added large holes to the design, letting you u-lock the helmet with your bike easily. 

The team and its partners have worked with big name brands like Specialized and Giro before, and the current prototype looks strong, if rudimentary. The profile is smooth, but the sizing and adjustment seem incongruously simple—too simple for a close, safe fit. And I’m not terribly impressed by the battery life. If my shorter than average commute is 30 minutes each way, I’m looking at an hour of recharge every three days without additional errands or pleasure rides. Compared with similarly smart bike accessories already on the market (entry-level rechargeable lights, GoPros, Garmin…) this seems inconvenient and puny. 

But my biggest question is the most crucial one: how does the Classon fit into the existing use cycle for helmets? To the surprise of many casual riders, helmets are supposed to be a disposable accessory, and they need to be replaced periodically to stay safe. Every time you drop them, wear them in the sun, or even let them sit idle in the garage for months, the styrofoam and composites are continually impacted and degraded. As the impact-absorbing materials compress and degrade, their ability to protect your head (i.e. the helmet’s entire reason for existing, livestream notwithstanding) is compromised. 

This is why anybody who knows anything about shock ratings and head trauma will recommend replacing your helmet every few years, even if you haven’t taken any head-first splats. There are some wingnuts who question this premise entirely (the moon landing deniers of the bike world), but the stats are real, easy to find, and sobering: the structural integrity of helmets gets rapidly sketchier as they age, period. 

I’m no detractor of fancy helmets, since a nice lightweight fit can mean the difference between wearing one and not. This $300 commuter helmet is poorly vented, heavy, and minimally ergonomic, but it offers some simplified technologies that might make riders feel safe enough to actually get out more. 

Adding features could be a move towards getting people to value and wear helmets, but does this option require investing in a whole new computer-hat every three years? Does it improve on existing helmet-mounted accessories? Would you wear one?

The Classon campaign runs through July 21, 2016.