Snowboarding is catching up with our day-to-day lives with a variety of trackers all its own. Take the newly released Cerevo Xon Snow-1 smart bindings for example. Cerevo has taken the typical bindings and turned them into connected devices.
In this case, the very nature and placement of bindings opens up interesting options, including balance tracking, something that goes beyond the stat tracking we’ve all come to expect from sports gear. Four load-balance pressure sensors built into the soles of the bindings monitor your weight distribution, while two strip sensors measure board flex. This can be huge if you’ve found yourself favoring a leg or are trying out a new board.
The Xon Snow-1 bindings connect to your smart iPhone (5s or newer) or iPod Touch (5 or greater) via Bluetooth 4.0 where you can view measurements of the weight distribution and flex in real time on the Xon app (keep in mind max rider weight is 220 lbs). The app also shows speed and distance, features that are nearly mandatory at this point, as well as altitude and acceleration. The bindings keep a log of your route, which is another feature that’s becoming standard in tracing gear with GPS capabilities, but is nonetheless welcome.
LED lights shine from the heel and the toe of the bindings, and change color in response to the load sensors. They thus let you see your load change without whipping out your smartphone. However, you can use the lights to make trail effects for riding vids, and to elicit the envy of other riders on the mountain. And a little extra light for evening runs is always welcome.
The bindings take about three hours to charge via micro USB, and will run as long as seven hours depending on how hard you hit the LEDs. No worries about the USB port — the Snow-1’s are IPX4 certified. And Xon Snow-1 connections don’t stop at your phone. The bindings also connect to upcoming Xon series gear like the Rec-1 sport camera, and the Bone-1 headphones, both coming in 2016. Riders could overlay the stats on a video taken with Rec-1 automatically using the app. The Bone-1’s could be used in conjunction with the Rec-1 to provide audio feedback.
The Snow-1’s go for $580, and are available now in medium and large from Amazon and direct from Cerevo’s online store.
