The Skully AR-1, a high-tech helmet aimed at making motorcycle riding safer by letting riders see what’s behind them, is now available for preorder. The helmet is being sold exclusively on Indiegogo for $1399 and is expected to ship in May 2015. The price of the helmet will go up to $1499 after a 30-day campaign. The Skully AR-1 helmet features a heads-up display that give riders a live feed from a rearview camera. The helmet features a heads-up display that shows a live feed from a nearly 180-degree rearview camera. The view of the back of the road is displayed outside of the rider’s primary field of view and appears about 10 feet away. The AR-1 is designed to make motorcycle riding safer by allowing riders to constantly see what’s behind them and in their blind spots without having to turn their head, according to Skully. “The AR-1 will introduce a new era in intelligent transportation by combining optics, intelligent vehicle systems and connectivity to deliver unprecedented levels of safety,” Skully founder and CEO Marcus Weller said in a press release.

The helmet connects to both iPhone and Android devices via Bluetooth. motorcycle dealers in westminster mdOther features include GPS navigation, speakers, a microphone and voice control. motorcycle store in charlottesville vaThe built-in battery that powers the display and electronics lasts for about nine hours, according to the company.motorcycle helmets london ontario The AR-1 was introduced last October at DEMO, and Skully said more than 100,000 motorcycle riders have signed up to be beta testers since then. Weller came up with the idea for the helmet following a motorcycle accident in 2011. To comment on this article and other PCWorld content, visit our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.

EagleRider Motorcycle Sales is committed to adhering to privacy principles and requirements in compliance with all applicable laws. It is our policy to safeguard all individually identifiable information entrusted to us. Use of this information enables us to provide you with superior customer service and offer products, programs, and services that may be of interest to you. We have developed this privacy notice to explain to you our practices regarding individually identifiable information. This Privacy Notice applies to the practices of EagleRider Motorcycle Sales, with respect to the individually identifiable information we collect about you in connection with assisting you in obtaining financing when you use the finance application on our web site. I certify that the information provided in this Application is complete, correct, and true to the best of my knowledge. I authorize EagleRider and their agents to pull my credit report from the credit reporting agencies and to investigate my credit, employment, and income records.

I agree that you may obtain credit and employment information about me by any means, including obtaining information from check or credit-reporting agencies and from other sources. I also authorize you to obtain my consumer report (credit report) for any reason and from time to time in the future when updating, renewing or extending my lease contract. I further understand that this application is not a promise, acceptance, nor a commitment to provide a lease contract to me but solely a request that a loan be provided to me under the terms and conditions to be disclosed in the contract which will be provided to me upon final approval of my application.It’s winter—or at least what passes for winter here in the San Francisco Bay Area—and it’s chilly, foggy, and occasionally rainy. If you’re a year-round rider like me, you’ve probably done your share of swearing inside your helmet because of a fogged faceshield or glasses. It turns out the problem of faceshield fogging is pretty easy to solve: there are inserts that do a great job, or you can just pop the thing open and let some air in, as long as it’s not raining.

Opening the faceshield can also keep your glasses from fogging—as long as you’re cool with being cold—but as soon as it starts raining, everything falls apart. If you open your shield to keep your glasses from fogging, rain runs down the inside of your shield and all over your glasses, and within minutes you can’t see a damn thing. After enduring a near-blind, pitch-black night ride up Highway 1 from Morro Bay in pouring rain a while back, I vowed to solve this problem. So after disappointing results from the anti-fog home remedy of dish soap on my glasses, I went out and bought a bunch of anti-fog products. I’ve been testing four products for the last few months, in everything from dry weather to fog and rain: Cat Crap, Clarity Defog It, MotoSolutions FogTech and finally, OptiFog prescription anti-fog lenses. The good news is, these products actually work pretty well—but not perfectly. These all work in the same basic way—by adding a thin film on your lenses that keeps water in the air from condensing into tiny droplets, or fog.

You can see this layer in action by applying one of these products and then holding your glasses over a steaming cup of tea. After a bit, if you look closely, you’ll see a transparent, almost oily-looking layer on the lens surfaces. This is what happens instead of fogging. The downside of this layer is that it can cause some haziness. It’s generally not a big deal, but if you’re riding in extreme conditions it can become a problem. These products also tend to exaggerate ‘haloing’ around lights when riding at night. In both cases, it’s not as bad as badly fogged glasses—but still less than awesome. Cat Crap is one of the original anti-fog products—it’s been hanging around the litter box for a while. It also has the best name of the bunch: “Hang on, fellas. I gotta put some Cat Crap on my glasses before we head out.” Application (crapplication?) is a two-step process. You rub a bit of crap on your lenses with your finger, and then buff it out. It took me a couple tries to get it just right—at first there was way too much haziness.

Once I figured out the right amount of buffing, resistance to fogging was pretty good—but Cat Crap still suffers from the most haziness and haloing of the three general-use products I tried. I also found it needed to be re-applied frequently, generally every day or so. You get: ½ ounce of crap Clarity’s Defog It anti-fog cloths are a cool idea: a reusable cloth that you wipe down your lenses with as needed, much like you would clean your glasses with a lint-free cloth. Application is easy—simply wipe down your lenses for 10-15 seconds. After use, you’re supposed to stow the cloth in the included cases to keep it clean for reuse, but unfortunately, the cloths seem to dry out pretty quickly—meaning the three cloths really don’t last that long. Performance is tops, though—as good as any of the products I tried, with less haziness than Cat Crap or the OptiFog lenses. They’re also very easy to use. Although Defog It needs to be reapplied frequently (as do all of these products), the only thing keeping these from being my go-to anti-fog product is the fact that the cloths dry out quickly—effectively increasing the cost per use quite a bit.

You get: 3 reusable Defog It cloths in a plastic case This stuff is: little “dry” wipes FogTech is the best of the bunch: easy to use, effective and reasonably long-lasting. Application is also among the fastest: squirt a bit of solution on one of the included applicator cloths and quickly paint a thin layer on your lenses. The solution dries quickly and is essentially unnoticeable. I tried FogTech on a pair of glasses with an anti-reflective coating first, and it was way too hazy. I emailed MotoSolutions to see what they said, and the owner responded to my email within 15 minutes, saying that the solution doesn’t work on some anti-reflective lenses and that I could send my bottle back for a full refund. We exchanged a couple of emails and the level of customer service and attention for an under- $20 product impressed me. Needless to say, I didn’t return it, but rather used it on a pair of glasses with no anti-glare coating. Performance is very good—on par with Clarity’s Defog It, but you get a lot more applications per bottle.

As with the others, the product has to be reapplied a lot more than the manufacturer indicates, but clarity is good, with limited haziness and haloing. As a result, FogTech is currently my go-to anti-fog for daily use. You get: 1 ounce bottle of FogTech and three tiny applicator cloths Since what I really wanted was for my glasses to be as awesomely fog-free as the Pinlock faceshield on my helmet, I decide to spring for a pair of anti-fog prescription lenses. These things aren’t cheap, and while your vision plan may entitle you to a discount, it’s not likely to cover the lenses. So they better be good, right?After dropping a significant chunk of cash on these fancy anti-fog specs, I was bummed to find that I’d still have to use an “activator” to make the magic happen, making my expensive anti-fog glasses no more convenient than pretty much any old pair of glasses and a bottle of FogTech. Even worse, the lenses are very susceptible to scratches and got pretty thrashed in short order—not exactly the golden ticket for a sport like motorcycling.

Prepping the lenses is much like applying FogTech. Squirt a few drops on a lint-free cloth and wipe it on—no buffing. If the performance of the lenses was amazing, I might be able to convince myself that the high price and generally crappy experience was worth it, but the OptiFog lenses are no better than any of the other anti-fog solutions I tried. While resistance to fogging is close to FogTech and Defog It, these lenses have a high level of haloing and haziness, and still require reapplication of the activator every couple days (Editor’s note: Opti-Fog claims the activator should be good for a week, and a 5 ml bottle–$10—should last about 6 months). You pay: depends—frames and lenses are likely to set you back $200-$300 or more. Your vision plan may help—but don’t count on it. You get: another pair of prescription glasses, a tiny (.17 ounce) bottle of Activator and a lint-free cloth. This stuff is: prescription lenses and a liquid activator. Other options: you can pick whatever glasses you want, but the lenses and activator remain the same.

Here’s how these products stack up against each other: It’s possible to achieve effective anti-fogging performance on glasses inside a full-face helmet, but unlike faceshield inserts, which are largely a “do it and be done with it” affair, keeping your glasses from fogging requires frequent reapplication of the product. In extreme conditions, it may be necessary to reapply more than once a day, although an average commuter should be able to get a couple of days per application out of most of these products. My current anti-fog system consists of a Pinlock shield and a pair of glasses I reserve for riding. I chose Transitions lenses with no anti-reflective coating, so I could ride with the same glasses day or night. I generally apply MotoSolutions FogTech every day or two. With this setup, I can ride with my shield completely closed, with no fogging of my glasses and good visibility in rainy weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.