If you’re interested in triathlon competitions but the only thing preventing you dread the open water portion of the event, these are the goggles for you. OnCourse Goggles prevent you from zigzagging.

In the free-for-all environment where swimmers are jockeying for position, it’s easy to swim off course. This is not only bad for your course time, but can also be scary, especially for first-time triathletes. The OnCourse Goggles are a swimmer’s best friend.

OnCourse Goggles are USAT approved for competition and at the fraction of the cost of other expensive triathlon equipment (SwimSkin, Wetsuit, Aerodynamic Helmet, Aerodynamic Bicycle Wheels), these smart goggles are poised to be the gear of choice for triathletes.

The OnCourse Goggles have been tested in competitive environments and the results are rather amazing: There’s a 15% performance gain, which is equivalent to 5.7 minutes shaved off a 1500m swim. OnCourse technology creates their goggles for non-elite swimmers (the athletes outside of the top 10% who find it difficult to swim straight in open water).

So how do they work?

To summarize, OnCourse’s website says that their design, utilizes an electronic compass to mimic the way birds and sea turtles follow the magnetic waves of the Earth. To best illustrate how the OnCourse Goggles work, here is the step-by-step process taken from the point of view of a triathlete prior to the start of the swim portion of their race:

1. Standing on the shore and seeing the channel marker in the distance, the competitor turns on her OnCourse Goggles. The goggle’s green LED’s will blink indicating a bearing must be entered.
2. The swimmer then faces the channel marker target, puts the goggles on, centers the target in her vision, and subsequently registers the heading with a single button press.
3. The goggle’s green LED’s will change from blinking green to solid, indicating a bearing has been entered and stored. It’s showtime!
4. As the gun goes off and the triathlete enters the water, the LEDs in both eyepieces will illuminate green letting the swimmer knows she’s on course.
5. If she veers off course to the right, both green LED’s will extinguish, and the left eyepiece will illuminate to notify the swimmer that she’s way too left and needs to make an adjustment to the right to be back OnCourse.
6. If she goes way left, a red LED will illuminate letting her know that she’s way off course and needs to make a major correction.
7. Once the adjustment is made, red turns to yellow, yellow turns to green once the swimmer is back OnCourse; i.e., the heading has been reestablished.

One of the coolest features of OnCourse’s Goggle technology: the built-in LED sensors aren’t fooled when you turn your head to take a breath or if after watching a SharkWeek marathon, you take a quick gander for Great Whites mid-race. The technology knows to keep its bearings without being distracted by small adjustments.

Outside of OnCourse’s innovative compass technology, the goggles perform extremely well. With the option of Inner Orbit or Mid Orbit Fit, swimmers can choose between two available sizes. The goggles are rated high with regard to comfort, especially after for longer periods of time, due to their soft silicone gaskets and comfortable strap design. The lenses are polarized, have an anti-fog coating, and are UV protected.

Backed by a one-year manufacturer’s warranty, OnCourse Goggles come with a rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery which lasts approximately 4 hours.

OnCourse Technology plans on adding a feature that allows users the freedom to program multiple race targets instead of just one. As it stands now, if there are multiple checkpoints during a competitive swim, the racer needs to reset the course after reaching each target. Without the distraction of resetting headings, athletes will be able to swim continuously and stay on course no matter the number of checkpoints.