Smart technology is more than just an important accessory for skiers and snowboarders.
Snow sports fans at the world’s top ski resorts this year will be looking for more than fresh powder and slightly-below-freezing cold. Just as network-based tech is inching into all other parts of our lives, it’s also taking a hold of the slopes—to the joy of skiers.
Ski and snowboard buffs have long used the image-capture features of smart phones and cameras to share photos and video of their latest moves. And the tech to do so has got better and better.
GoPro for instance, offers a product with front-and-back lenses for a 360º field of view, plus an app that lets users preview, edit, and share videos while on the move. But sharing photos and video is old hat compared to some of the new high-tech apps making an entrance. Take Carv. Backed with a Kickstarter campaign that went five and a half times over target, Carv aims to be “the first wearable technology dedicated to skiing that speaks to you as you ski.”
All this technology isn’t just about helping people to ski better and share their highlights, though. It could also help with safety.
Global Positioning System (GPS)-linked tracking apps are one of the most common types of mobile tech in use on ski slopes, thought to be used by millions each year. As well as helping users to see what routes they have been down, and how fast, the apps can help locate people who have gone missing.
In 2014, for instance, GPS tracking helped to find eight children and two adults who got lost on the Red Mountain ski resort in British Columbia, Canada. “While the individual skiers did not have GPS trackers on them, the same technology was used by the resort to locate the potential paths they may have taken,” said a news report. “This is how the helicopter found them on the mountain.”
“Skiing is still a great way to enjoy nature and get away from the stresses of modern life,” says Conchita Bonatti of the award-winning Catalan Ski School or Escola Catalana d’Esquí, in La Molina, Catalonia, “but many people are now getting even more out of it with technology.”
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