Although just a few days ago GoPro issued a quarterly results report where The figures presented do not invite us to think about a prosperous short-term future.the reality is that the brand has not stopped working for a second on its new project in parallel to the one that represents its main business focus: action cameras. We refer to your new business adventure with the aim of developing its own range of smart helmets.
GoPro facing an important technological challenge
At the beginning of 2024, GoPro began this new business journey after acquiring the Australian helmet brand Forcite Helmet Systems. As explained at the time in the statement issued by the American firm, it intended to accelerate the vision of Forcite, “providing a safer and more dynamic motorcycling experience through technology-enabled motorcycle helmets.”
Furthermore, he assured that one of the main long-term objectives of this project was the “to enable other categories of helmets over time.” At this point it is important to remember that Forcite had already been working on the development of the MK1S for several years, “the affordable smart helmet that is already in mass production.” Based on this, the new owners of the company should focus on expanding the development of these technologies.
A mission that a priori was within the company’s reach, as they stated at the time of the acquisition by stating: “We are excited to leverage our brand reputation along with our technical and operational capabilities to address what we believe is long-term growth. In addition to our plan to develop our own line of GoPro-branded helmets.”
The partnership with AGV
Just a year and a half later we knew GoPro’s next commercial move in relation to its future range of smart helmets: an ambitious collaboration agreement with the Italian equipment firm AGV Helmets. Nicholas Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, explained the reasons for this strategic partnership within a sector as competitive and demanding as motorcycle helmets:
“This alliance between GoPro and AGV represents the exciting potential of two leading brands coming together to bring significant innovation, increased safety and performance to the world of motorcycling, leveraging each other’s design, engineering and brand strengths. We look forward to sharing news as we approach the launch of our first joint product.”
The most striking details of the GoPro smart helmet
And we come to the current moment and the recent publication of the images presented to the GoPro patent-for-art registry. They show some detailed sketches of the design and technology that the first of the different smart helmet models developed by the company should end up adopting. The most relevant aspects are the installation of an integrated camera and rear microphones to monitor blind spots.
But this is not all, since it would also have other equipment elements such as two microphones for user communication, as well as an LED lighting system embedded in the chin guard itself. The light emitted “They project light onto a reflective segment on the top of the visor. Different colors and sequences are used to transmit messages to the rider, for example, indicating the direction to follow when navigating by GPS”as explained by AMCN.
Safety as the great standard bearer of the project
As we have already mentioned previously, the new range of GoPro smart helmets essentially focuses on offering the end customer a series of functions applied to active safety at all times. Both rear microphones stand out, connected directly to the cloud and designed “to be combined with advanced machine learning technology to create a low-cost blind spot monitoring system.”
To achieve this, both elements would capture the noise emitted at all times by the surrounding traffic. As detailed in the description of the patent itself, through machine learning we could monitor both the exact position and distance in real time of any vehicle that circulates near us. In this process the system is able to take the sound of the motorcycle itself out of the equation.
“Thanks to the integrated accelerometers, the helmet can record the movements of the rider’s head so as not to be confused with the position of other vehicles while looking around”conclude from the mid-ocean. Now we just have to wait for GoPro to finish presenting a concept of the model, but above all test its operation in real driving.
