Dark Helmet

December 17, 2004

The big trend in gadgets today is embedding headphones in headwear. Giro makes ski helmets with integrated headphones. Burton sells a snowboard helmet with headphones and a Headphone Beanie.

Where's the helmet with the built-in bluetooth mobile phone headset? That's technology I could use. While skiing, I wear a helmet. Sometime last year, I was sitting on a chairlift and heard my mobile phone ring in my jacket pocket. After fishing the phone out of my pocket, I pressed the answer button and held the phone up to my head only to have it smack against the side of the helmet. I quickly remembered that I was wearing a helmet and that having the ski helmet between my ear and the phone makes it impractical, if not impossible to actually answer the phone.

Why not have a bluetooth headset built into the ski helmet? That would not only make it possible to answer the phone, but eliminate the need to fish in one's pocket for the phone. For the one time a year it would come in handy, such a helmet would not justify the extra expense. Plus, wouldn't it be annoying to have to change the battery in a helmet?