In the video above, you can see me turning my head to check my side mirror. That won't be eliminated with the final Skully, but you'll have to do it a lot less.
Surprisingly, even in its rough prototype state, the foundational promise of the Skully helmet holds fast. A gentle flick of your eyes downward and you can check your surroundings for incoming vehicles. That quick shifting of the eyes down and up again takes less time than it does to turn your head to the mirror, or even further around.
Right there, that's safety gold. To be able to see what's around you without taking your eyes off of the road in front of you is an incredible boon to bikers.
It's like being surrounded by ninjas," said Weller. "You know one of them is going to attack you, but you don't know which one. Imagine you can keep your eyes on them right in your periphery while looking forward."
While it may seem that attempting to see in front of yourself and behind yourself at the same time while avoiding becoming street sushi is a task too dangerous for the human brain, it worked impressively well. The display was not distracting, as long as I treated it like a conventional side mirror.
"What's the opposite of distracting is taking all that information [from the rear-view camera] and putting it up in one place, so that I can consume that information at a rate that was physically impossible before," said Weller.
The lower right corner was an intentional placement for the heads-up display. Bikers already look there when checking their side mirrors, Weller said, and he explained that the easiest way to get people comfortable with the helmet was to make it as familiar as possible.
"We wanted natural familiarity," he said. "Familiarity breeds liking. The more you're exposed to something, the more you like it."
That familiarity, he said, would come from exploiting actions riders already make. "You capitalize on behaviors you know that people have, you don't create new ones." Otherwise, Weller added, "you have so many user adoption and safety issues."
The integrated rear-view camera and display would probably be enough for many riders, but the Skully P1 has more features.
The helmet comes with onboard GPS, so that if you don't have a smartphone you can still get directions. Directional arrows appeared in my display with a soft glow, and then went away in the same manner. Weller said that the company's research showed that abrupt pop ups would distract the rider, so they went with more gentle visual notifications.