ByCortney Harding,
Contributor.
On Saturday, May 9th, I stood at the start line for the Dawn To Dusk to Dawn ultramarathon in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania. I had all my usual gear (watch, phone and headphones with some good playlists and audiobooks) and my snacks and electrolytes, but I also had something brand new – a pair of Engo smartglasses. Pitched as “connected glasses for serious athletes,” the French company is approaching the market with a slightly different audience in mind – lunatics like me, who find joy in running 31 miles on a random Saturday.
Post-race, my honest assessment is that while the glasses are pretty basic, they certainly offer some real benefits. It took a few minutes to get comfortable wearing them, but that’s par for the course for any new pair of glasses, and once I was used to them, they were great. I could easily glance up to see my pace and distance, while otherwise looking straight ahead at the course, and didn’t find them distracting at all. They definitely met the “glanceability” principle that is a cornerstone of good smartglasses design – easy to peek at the information to get what I need and then go back to my primary task.
I didn’t wear them for the entire race, largely because I was worried about the companion app draining my phone battery, so they might not be best for running very long distances (although the glasses themselves have a 20-hour battery life). I did test them again on a shorter recovery run and they worked well for the entire three mile jaunt around my neighborhood. They synced with my Apple Watch, and I found the data presented to be as accurate as any other tracking device I’ve used.
