The Best Budget-Friendly Ski Goggles
After many hours of testing ski and snowboard goggles in different weather conditions, we have picked the best budget ski goggle for skiing and snowboarding in a wide range of ski conditions.
Note: You should invest in a quality pair of ski goggles regardless of whether this is your first trip on the slopes or you are a seasoned veteran. A good pair of ski goggles will not only shield you from the elements, including the wind, snow, and the sun’s damaging rays, but they will also keep you safe by allowing you to get down the ski slopes in challenging conditions safely.
Ski Goggle: SMITH Range Snow Gogglesย
Price: $60 – $80
Pros: Excellent value for money with respectable levels of comfort and performance.
Cons: When the weather is bad, and the lighting is difficult, the lens does not perform as well as more expensive goggles.
Overview: Smith Optics, a global leader in protective eyewear and headwear, has released a line of affordable products called The Smith Range. This product is an excellent choice for those who only ski or snowboard occasionally since it combines a straight forward minimalistic, yet contemporary design with some useful extras at a price point that is far lower than other ski goggles.
The goggle is available in different colors and with a different lens. However, each goggle only comes with one lens per goggle.
Comfort: Overall, the Range is a very accommodating goggle. The strap is sufficiently broad to prevent pressure points from forming and employs a conventional sliding adjustment method for quick and straightforward size modification. The two-layer foam that contains Driwix is semi-soft and our testers didn’t find it bothersome.
Smith’s Responsive FitTM frame contours to the shape of your face for an optimal and comfortable fit. This technology makes use of a minimalistic and soft rectangular construction, which enables the frame to bend softly and adjust to the contours of the wearer’s face. According to the results of our tests, they are suitable for a range of face shapes.
The goggle is also designed for optimal integration with Smith helmets in order to provide the highest possible levels of comfort, ventilation, and fog-free performance.
Lens: The goggle comes with one cylindrical lens that comes standard with the Smith Range. This lens had a solid optical clarity and color for the price range at which the goggles are being sold.ย The Carbonic-x lens is in a cylindrical shape for optical clarity and resistance to impact. With it’s built-in Airflow technology for enhanced active ventilation combined with the ski goggles’ Fog-X anti-fog inner lens for fog-free performance, we found the goggle to perform well when the weather turned bad.
Conclusions: The Range is sold at an extremely fair price and offers acceptable optical quality, decent ventilation, and overall comfort. With care the Smith Range should last a few seasons before needing to be replaced or upgraded. This is an excellent choice for skiers or snowboarders looking to buy their first pair of ski goggles or are constrained by their budget.
If you are looking to upgrade from this goggle, we recommend checking out the Smith I/O Mag ChromaPop.