Homemade Heads Up Display For Bicycling?

An anonymous reader asks: "I am a geek that bicycles in an urban center. After seeing this commercial product, I was interested in the possibility of building a homebrew HUD for a bicycle helmet. I searched the usual places and couldn't find much so I thought I'd ask the readers of Slashdot. A HUD that displays speed, distance, and cadence seems very feasible as many bike computers collect that data. A great longshot would be a range-finder that told you the distance to the object you were turned toward, but I'm not crossing my fingers for that. So what components would be needed to make such a cool device?"

Comments

Are you nuts?

[Otter]

A great longshot would be a range-finder that told you the distance to the object you were turned toward, but I'm not crossing my fingers for that.

As an urban bicycle commuter, my suggestion is that the distance to far-off objects is probably less valuable to you than an extra fraction of a second of reaction time to a door opening in your path. If you have sufficient attention to spare to run gkrellm or SuperKaramba on your helmet, you have more than most of us.

Portable lasers and bicycles

[Single GNU Theory]

Seeing as how you're going to have to carry this thing on your head (it'll be the stablest platform on a bike, and is aimable), you're going to be limited to something about the size of a readily-available laser pointer.

Before you spend any serious money on this, I would suggest taking a laser pointer outside to see how far away you can make out the spot. I don't think it's going to be very far at all. Maybe one of those laser tape measures would do the trick, though.

More powerful lasers, to put a bigger spot farther away, aren't going to be as portable, and will probably be a danger to pedestrians or fellow cyclists if you glance at them to say hi.

I would suggest trying to satisfy your number fetish with a top-line bicycle computer. Mine (a Specialized P-Brain) records heart rate and altitude along with speed and distance, and can download data to a Windows box for graphing (I tried the software under Wine but it didn't seem to work). Other computers use GPS to track your location, or measure the chain tension to record the smoothness of your pedal stroke. Others record your power output with a special hub.

When I ride, I never do more than glance at my computer. It's not safe when the traffic's heavy- the numbers *always* take a back seat to situational awareness. And on lonely roads, I tend to ride by my perception of my own effort. Worrying over the numbers is for later, in front of a computer looking at the graphs!

Resist the urge to mount stuff on your helmet

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not want to mount a bunch of stuff on your hemlet that can A) cause point loading on impact or B) prevent you helpment from sliding across a surface, thereby putting some serious stress on your neck.

Somebody recently mentioned a guy they know who has mounted a PVC pipe sticking straight up to the top of his hemlet as a light mounting point. Should he get in an accident with an impact on the top of his head, the coroner is going to have a great brain core sample to look at.