There’s nothing more beautiful than riding your motorcycle off into the sunset. Unfortunately, there’s also nothing more blinding. Some riders carry extra pairs of sunglasses to adjust to the light conditions. Others carry additional visors. And some just squint. eTint’s new automatic visors attempt to do away with all of that excess gear, and they do a pretty good job.
AlphaMicron was originally researching and developing tint technology to address a similar problem for the military. The patented eTint technology is currently in use by several divisions of the military, and is now being marketed for commercial use.
eTint was initially marketed toward snow sports, but these motorcycle visors are starting to make a splash in the motorsports world.
“e-Tint technology uses a guest-host mixture consisting of "guest" dichroic dyes (developed and synthesized by AlphaMicron) in a liquid crystal "host",” Alphamicron says on their website. “Certain dyes will allow a change in either the absorbance, color or both. This mixture is sandwiched between two curved flexible plastic substrates coated with transparent electrodes. By applying voltage to the substrates, the electro-optic response of the liquid crystal is used to control the transmissivity and the color of the device. The voltage can be applied manually with the touch of a button or automatically through a photo cell, providing instantaneous control over the tint of the eye wear.”
Confused? Check out this simple, yet cheesy, video about eTint’s new visors.
eTint currently has the MX-8, a manual version of their visor which works with the simple push of a button, and the AX-9, which will automatically adjust due to changing light conditions. The manual version will run you about $130, while the automatic version is available for $20 more.
The visors have about 60 hour battery life and are pretty easy to install.
The one down side to the visors is that they only have two tint settings. Light and dark. You can find visor inserts with a wide range of tint settings, but you won't be able to use them with the push of a button.
eTint visors were "developed for the air force, adapted for the rider"
You can check out eTint's products here at their website.
