Everysight Raptor glasses

The Raptor glasses from Everysight are the latest version of wearable tech we've seen appearing on the market. They have built-in GPS, HD camera, microphone, speakers for music, wi-fi and Bluetooth plus, most importantly, a head-up display showing all of your ride data on the screen right in front of your eye. All this tech comes at one hell of a price, but their performance is pretty impressive and they certainly feel like a simple-to-use, finished product.

• Pros: Head up display, easy to use once you've got used to it
• Cons: Camera hammers battery life, a big outlay

The first thing you notice about the Raptors is the weight: at 101g they are about three times as heavy as most top-end sunglasses. Thankfully, it isn't really an issue when you've got them on; I wore them for a four-hour ride and didn't really notice it. The only thing that can happen, if you lower your head to look at the ground or at your cassette, for instance, is that they tend to swing off your nose. The arms grip tightly, though, so there are no worries about them falling off.

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As sunglasses they do a pretty good job, if nothing exceptional. Clarity of the lenses is good with no distortion or anything around the edges and I never suffered with them fogging up, even though airflow over the top is quite restricted as the frame of the Raptors is quite big where it houses all of the electronics and gizmos, so it fits flush against the forehead.

I was worried about it getting in my eyeline because of its thickness, but in reality I never had an issue.

Optional extras include a clear lens for riding on overcast days and at night, and you can have prescription lenses added behind the main lens.

Now for the fun part: the gadgets!

Head-up display

The thing that grabbed everyone's attention when the Raptors arrived in the office was that they have a head-up display, which shows all of the menus and various settings plus the metrics when you are riding.

The colours used are green and orange, which really stand out even on a bright sunny day, and you scroll through the various menus and options by swiping and tapping on the right arm. It feels a little clunky to start with while you are trying to remember what does what, but once you've familiarised yourself with the controls it becomes second nature.

A controller to mount on your handlebar is also available.

Everysight has an app available for both iOS and Android platforms which you use for the initial setup and any other settings you want to tweak, all via Bluetooth.

The head-up display can be adjusted for brightness and position, plus you can zoom in or out depending on how much of the screen you want to use. Using your phone screen to adjust all of this is quick and easy.

With everything set up, the simplest operation is to select 'Just Ride'.

In use

The Raptors have built-in GPS, so once the satellites have been engaged (it can take a while even on the clearest of days compared to my Garmin 810 or the Mio Cyclo 210), you tap the arm to start.

The head-up display in ride mode displays the information across the top and around the sides in exactly the way you can see in the videos further down the review. You can get a rough idea how it looks with this interactive video. This way it isn't distracting at all, because if you aren't staring directly at it, it is easy to ignore.

You have a choice of five pages of metrics as, thanks to the Raptors having both Bluetooth and ANT+ it will connect with any sensor you have like heart rate, power or cadence. All of this can be set up via the app.

By logging into your account on the Everysight website you can set up your parameters for heart rate, power and so on, and depending on what zone you are in it will display the metrics in different colours from green through yellow to red.

This is great for keeping yourself in check and really handy if you use the built-in workout mode where you can follow specific training plans that you've designed.

Routes can also be followed by uploading the file created to the Raptors. Maps for pretty much everywhere in the world are available to download, so the Raptors can give you direction instructions on the screen. That said, the display just gives an arrow pointing in a rough direction and the countdown to when the turn needs to be made; it's a pretty primitive way of pointing out a route so isn't something I'd use often.

Post-ride

When you are finished with your ride, a couple of taps on the arm will take you through the process of saving it to the internal storage of the glasses. You can connect your account to Strava if you are a user and as soon as you open the Everysight app and sync the ride it will be passed over.

The Everysight app doesn't show much data, so using Strava to look at the ride will give you much more information.

Built-in camera

Another cool thing about the Raptors is the fact that they also come with a built-in camera for both pictures and videos. I don't really tend to run a camera on the bike but I thought, with it being part of the package, I'd have it on to record the ride just in case anything untoward happened. I was a bit surprised when it recorded for just one minute at a time, though.

It turns out that it really uses up the battery power, so I can see why Everysight has done this. You can now extend the recording to 90 seconds by swiping the arm halfway through, thanks to an update.

The app lets you select what mode you want to shoot in. Video is available in Social 480p/30fps, HD 720p/60fps which Everysight recommends is the best for moving footage, and HD 1080p/30fps.

The quality in this first video is in that Social setting, ideal for creating clips to share on social media; as you can see from the quality, it's best viewed on a small screen.

The Raptors have their own wi-fi which links to your phone to upload these videos and it does so pretty quickly and without fuss. The head-up display data is also overlaid.

If you want sharper footage then select the HD settings. This next video is recorded in in the 720p mode, with the file being uploaded to your PC via the USB cable because of its size.

It doesn't come with the metrics added, so if you want those you need to download the Everysight's annotation tool which overlays the ride data over the video. It's still in beta mode but works okay; I'd say the video and the overlaid graphics are about seven seconds out of sync. The 47mph you see at the end of the video was what I was actually doing at the bottom of the hill rather than on the climb!

If you want to take pics for Instagram or Strava, the quality is pretty good. The pic below was taken when I was out for a ride with my daughter. A quick double tap on the arm to turn the camera on and then swipe to take the pic, simple. You can also use voice commands.

Battery life

All of this filming and picture taking can really have an effect on battery life. On the 1hr 40min ride that I recorded using the HD video, I used over 45% of the battery. That was taking about 13 minutes of video and 10 photos, plus the use of the GPS.

You can slow this power sapping by opening the app on your phone, so the Raptors can use the GPS on that, and if you don't use the video and other settings you will just about reach the claimed eight-hour burn time. Riding with the app running in the background also means you can receive call, text and email notifications via the glasses.

You get battery power alerts on the head-up display, too, to help you keep an eye on things. When it does need charging, it's pretty quick, especially if you plug it into the mains: from flat to full in two hours.

Value

When it comes to the price, £699 (32GB option; £649 for the 16GB) is quite an outlay, and I for one would really have to assess whether or not I could justify it – and I like the Raptors.

I can see their benefits for racing, especially time trialling or the bike leg in triathlon events like Ironman, where you want to remain in an aerodynamic position on the tri-bars so no dipping your head to look at your computer screen. Having power and heart rate data right in front of you will definitely aid pacing. For most, though, the benefits are minimal over a bar-mounted Garmin or similar.

Three years ago we tested the Recon Jet Black glasses which had a similar setup and George liked the idea but found them flawed. They were originally priced at £579.99, although that quickly dropped to £359.99. Unfortunately, the reviews across the web for the Recons weren't great and there is little evidence of them now. I'd say that the Raptors sound a much more refined product, with better user-friendliness but getting on for double the price.

If you can do without the head-up display but still want the GPS and a video camera then the Xplova X5 Evo computer, which has both built in for use on your handlebar, is worth a look. That'll cost you £379.99.

Garmin's Edge 1030 is probably one of the most advanced GPS computers and it's far from cheap at £499.99.

If the Raptors started to appear at that sort of price, I'd probably take a punt.

Conclusion

On the whole I think the Raptors are a decent product and simple to use. And as with anything gadget-wise, once a benchmark product has been delivered updates across the board follow quickly, so who knows where we'll be in a couple of years.

Verdict

A different approach to the humble cycle computer but one that works – battery life and the price the only issues