[AtheK]

It has been sometime that I had been thinking of getting the Dainese D-Air Jacket. It had caught my eye when they had launched the vest few years back, I came very close to buying it but then backed out as I was not very interested to carry one more jacket along with the entire set of riding gear we already have.



I waited for them to come up with a full jacket version, and then they launched the first road Jacket - Smart jacket LS with level 2 protectors on shoulder and elbow. This was really good and I made up my mind to get it, in one of my trips abroad I visited the Dainese showroom to pick it, but they did not have my size. I was also a bit double minded as the jacket though had complete protection but was a bit too bland and looked like a normal Jacket. I decided I will pick it in one of my next trips and also decided to wait if they will launch another version.



Then finally Dainese launched the Smart Jacket LS Sport and this was a true Dainese jacket for me. It had a prominent Demon Logo and also much more visible both from front and back. This also had Level 2 protectors all around along with the airbag, and this time while I was in Singapore I finally bit the bullet and picked it up. The jacket looked way better in person then in photos. This is there gen 3 jacket and is updated with all that they have learnt from previous 2 gens.



This jacket uses same technology as they use in MotoGP and is programmed for road use. They have jackets for track use also, which are mainly there leather jackets or suits. The latest 2024 models can now also be switched to road or track use.

From Dainese site

MORE THAN A BACK PROTECTOR, WITHOUT A BACK PROTECTOR.

The Dainese D-air® airbag system protects the rider's back and vital parts with its Shield, the patented airbag with microfilaments that ensures high shock absorption capacity without the need for hardshell protective gear. The amount of protection is equivalent to seven back protectors and it covers a wider surface than a single back protector, without the restrictions. The safety of air.

SAFE LIKE 8 CHEST PROTECTORS, WITHOUT HARDSHELL.​

The amount of protection provided by Dainese D-air® airbag system is equivalent to 8 rigid Level 2 chest protectors on the front. Again, the safety of air.

Now I haven't tested the above (and I hope I never have to), I will believe in them as we have seen this technology in action. We need to give ourselves the best chance to protect ourselves where ever possible.

For the uninitiated how does the jacket protect, please see the video below, it is very informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXnKF7jsy7k

About the Jacket.



The Jacket is very well built and airy, I expected the Jacket to be a bit lighter then it is, but it almost weighs similar to a standard jacket with back protectors. The big advantage though is that it does not have the hard shell of a back protector and that makes movement much more easier and makes it much more comfortable to wear for longer rides. The jacket has air bag which covers your back and chest and also your collar bone, for shoulder and elbow it has a level 2 soft protector installed.

This is a standalone jacket and has a chip running inside it which monitors your current state and deploys jacket in case of a fall. Below is from Dainese site.

ALWAYS AWARE OF WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND THE RIDER.​

The brain inside the Smart Jacket senses and analyzes everything that goes on around the rider. It uses its sensors to monitor and process data 1,000 times a second. Its complex algorithm activates the airbag in the event of lowsiders, highsiders, collisions with objects or other vehicles, and rear-end collisions. For the first time with a motorcycle airbag system, activation also occurs in a collision with a stationary vehicle, which is common when stopping at an intersection. You concentrate on the road, the Smart Jacket will keep you safe as you move.

The jacket needs to be registered first on the Dainese website before you can start using it, once registered it needs to be charged to 100% and you are ready to go. Dainese has an app which you need to connect to for doing the activation and also check the charge level. The Jacket comes with it's own charging cable which is a USB C to USB type C cable. Below are couple of screenshots of the App.





You can use the app to update the jacket with any new updates, mainly better algorithms that Dainese might release in near future. This is in V3, before this you had to take the jacket to Dainese showroom for updates, this definitely makes life easier. You can also put the jacket in shipping mode from the app while travelling so that it does not open up accidentally. The jacket has a nice waist strap inside so as to provide multiple level of adjustments.

Once you have registered and charged the Jacket, the led light on the jacket turns green indicating Jacket is fully charged and ready to be worn. Once you wear the jacket it has two clip on buttons above the zipper, you need to clip them on to activate the jacket. Once done light will turn from Red to Blue with vibration indicating that the jacket is now armed. If you have not put both the clips it will vibrate and turn to red and keep on vibrating after few seconds to indicate that the jacket is not armed, this will also turn the light back to red.

Once the blue light is on, the jacket is now ready to be activated, and it will get activated in below conditions.

1. The engine is turned on, so it will pick the Vibrations and activate the jacket.
2. The bike is moving and is above 5 Kmph, it will figure this out by GPS and activate the jacket.

Once activated the green light turns on and gives a vibration to rider indicating that the bike now is armed and activated. You can then get onto riding without worrying about anything else and concentrate on the road. One charge lasts upto 26 hours. Once you are done riding you can just turn off the engine and this will put the jacket back in armed state and LED will turn from green to blue. Removing the clip on buttons will deactivate the jacket completely indicated once by vibration and red LED.

I have now used the Jacket for close to 500 Kms and am very happy with the comfort of the Jacket. This is an expensive jacket and costs around 1000$ with taxes but then it is a price I was ready to pay to feel a bit more protected compared to the normal jackets. While nothing is 100% safe this does give you a chance of better survival. I wish there were similar riding pants also, the one available in market today are all tethered types and need to be connected to bike.

The Jacket though has a flaw which is that you can not wash it or wear it in rains. You need to have a rain cover for you to be riding in rains, which surprisingly was not included by Dainese. They should have definitely included this for the price they are charging. Price and above point are the only two cons I can see for the jacket for now, and I wish the price comes down soon and this jacket becomes much more mainstream.

If you can afford one, I would whole heartedly recommend you to get one, while there are many things which are out of our control while riding, let's try to control what we can to keep ourselves safe as much as possible. Signing off with a photo of me wearing the jacket.



I already have matching shoes and gloves and to compliment the Jacket I got the leather pants also to feel a bit more safe compared to the riding jeans. This should complete the red and black look.



Until next time, Ride safe, stay safe.

[Nilesh5417]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Then finally Dainese launched the Smart Jacket LS Sport and this was a true Dainese jacket for me. It had a prominent Demon Logo and also much more visible both from front and back. This also had Level 2 protectors all around along with the airbag, and this time while I was in Singapore I finally bit the bullet and picked it up. The jacket looked way better in person then in photos. This is there gen 3 jacket and is updated with all that they have learnt from previous 2 gens.

Attachment 2620924


Until next time, Ride safe, stay safe.

Thanks for thus detailed review @athek . I think the riding jackets with airbags have finally gotten to a point where they are practical. Also, 60k is awesome pricing - it surely makes it a lot palatable and I hope with increased sales, it only gets more economical.

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by Nilesh5417

Thanks for thus detailed review @athek . I think the riding jackets with airbags have finally gotten to a point where they are practical. Also, 60k is awesome pricing - it surely makes it a lot palatable and I hope with increased sales, it only gets more economical.

Thanks Nilesh, but it is still about 1000 USD (after tax), I paid 1299 SGD but did get a GST refund, so it eventually costed me around 74K INR. That said I am sure the prices will drop as technology becomes more mainstream. The vest was on sale for about 48K and GST refund would have made it even more cheaper. It was indeed a very good price.

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Attachment 2620932

Never knew that I will be replying to my own post so soon with a real life experience of my smart jacket in action (The Riding Gear thread)

Sometime back I was out riding and was doing decent enough speeds on a highway I am extremely familiar with. There is a stretch where there are lot of trees and then suddenly road opens up, which creates a blind spot. While cruising at around 120 Kmh while I was about to get out of that stretch a car from a village road at very high speeds joined the highway, now either they were just ripping or they did not see me approaching because of the blind spot, either way they were way too high to enter the highway like that. To not crash into them i braked and swerved left missed them by a whisker and saw a service road ahead and decided to enter the service road as it was empty. I had just took a sigh of relief when I realised there is a speed breaker ahead at the entry of the road. I braked again but was too late and went over the speed breaker at some speed, I was thrown off my seat due to the impact, but held on to the handle bar and landed back on seat safely.

All this happened in a span of 3-4 seconds and I thanked my stars and guardian angle that nothing untoward happened, as the adrenaline died down after next few seconds I felt something pressing into my chest, that is when I realised that the airbag had deployed. The airbag had opened up and had kept my head straight as it covers the collarbone, chest and of-course the back. Luckily the speed breaker was a scientifically designed one and when I stopped to check on the bike there were no bent rims or fork oil leakage. In the mean time the airbag also deflated and jacket came back to normal shape and I rode back home.

Looking back at the incident I was mighty pleased by the way the jacket worked, the sensors worked like they should and since I did get thrown around on the bike there was a high possibility of me falling in which case the algorithms worked perfectly and saved me by anticipating a fall and deploying the airbag. Everything was so seamless that I could not even realise when the bag deployed, the technology used to build this jacket and the algorithms used are done to perfection.

Warranty Claim from Dainese.

Since there was no fall Jacket was absolutely fine and I was supposed to travel to Singapore for work in couple of weeks. I wrote to Dainese showroom and updated them of the activation and how it went over a speed breaker and jacket got triggered and if it will be covered Under warranty as Jacket is still fine. They sent me a form to fill and asked me to get the Jacket to there store once i reach Singapore. I took the jacket to them and they told me they will download all the data from the jacket and send to Italy team who will analyse the incident and then get back to me if the Jacket can be covered under warranty.

After few days they called me and told me that Italy team have analysed the data and the Jacket worked perfectly and they would have been much more worried if the airbag had not deployed in such an instance. I guess majority of testing has been done on roads without speed breakers, but then again who goes on a speed breaker at around 60-70 kph speed anyway. They though did say that since the jacket is pretty new as a goodwill they will only charge me labor and replace the air bag as free, which i was happy to agree with.

Replacement cost for airbag in Singapore for the Jacket is 500 SGD, but they replaced it for 200 SGD. In Europe it costs 250 euros and in US it is 300$. This is obviously an added cost, but then the safety it provides is unmatched. God Forbidden if I had fallen, it would have really had my back.

This is an absolute peach of a technology though and if you can afford it, do get it, it is totally worth the money for the protection it provides.

[hikozaru]

Originally Posted by AtheK

I guess majority of testing has been done on roads without speed breakers, but then again who goes on a speed breaker at around 60-70 kph speed anyway.

Ugh. Guess no tech air 7x for me. I mean, I get their decision and I would have made the same choice myself as a product designer, but it is not particularly practical if it gets in the way of standing up and ripping on broken roads. That is why I bought a naked instead of a supersport with low ground clearance. I guess Helite's tethered backpack is the only reasonable option for India.

How hot does it get under the airbag? You think it is usable in summers for touring with leathers including the final urban crawl?

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by hikozaru

Ugh. Guess no tech air 7x for me. I mean, I get their decision and I would have made the same choice myself as a product designer, but it is not particularly practical if it gets in the way of standing up and ripping on broken roads. That is why I bought a naked instead of a supersport with low ground clearance. I guess Helite's tethered backpack is the only reasonable option for India.

How hot does it get under the airbag? You think it is usable in summers for touring with leathers including the final urban crawl?

You can stand and rip on broken roads i guess, but there should not be too much movement of your body, specially being thrown around, I will myself not be comfortable using this jacket for that purpose. This is programmed for road use, for track also, you need there other one and not this as algorithm are different, since you will lean much more on track. This was the reason I did not take this jacket to my recent ladakh trip as chances of fall at low speeds is very high and I did not want another activation.

This one is mesh jacket and it stays pretty well ventilated, but under leather I am sure this will get hot. I haven't ridden with leather jacket which has Dair Technology, so can't be sure but the above will be my educated guess.

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Never knew that I will be replying to my own post so soon with a real life experience of my smart jacket in action (The Riding Gear thread)
…
This is an absolute peach of a technology though and if you can afford it, do get it, it is totally worth the money for the protection it provides.

Firstly, very happy to know nothing untoward happened. Secondly, thank you so much for not only a detailed post at the time of purchase but also this useful one that spelt out how it played out in reality as well as the follow on process with Dainese.

It's only a matter of time before various airbag tech becomes more mainstream among superbike riders to begin with just as proper riding gear has well permeated within the community. It's great to hear real life incidents being explained from that standpoint. I haven't had the time to apply myself to the research around airbag tech and which way I'd like to go should I choose to plonk money on one but sooner rather than later I do see myself investing in one of these set ups. It can make a massive difference in the event of an unfortunate incident, and the protection provided by an airbag like structure is simply leagues ahead of what your armor can provide standalone.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Airbag deployment experience on my Dainese Smart Jacket LS Sport posts moved to a new thread.

Thanks for sharing Athek!

[lemedico]

Could we have a look at some photos of the aftermath please?

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by lemedico

Could we have a look at some photos of the aftermath please?

I did not click the photo of the Inflated jacket as I was just recollecting my thoughts and after a few minutes it got deflated and looked like normal Jacket.

[TheHelix0202]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Sometime back I was out riding and was doing decent enough speeds on a highway I am extremely familiar with.

Glad you’re okay, dude. A lot of things worked in your favour that day!

Great to see a piece of tech work seamlessly as it should. Hope Dainese honor your warranty claim.

Ride safe!

[AtheK]

Dainese smart air is the latest from Dainese now, this is even lighter then the smart air vest that they had, it is on pre-order on stores and should be available to order online soon.

The new Smart Air’s strong points are its triple-activation airbag, which doesn’t need replacing, as well as its practical gas generator, which can easily be replaced completely independently.

This also seems to be a great solution with the light material they have used and the fact that gas generator can be replaced independently, hopefully by the consumer themselves. In my case if that would have been an option I could have just ordered the canister as my airbag was absolutely fine.

At a pre-order price of 699$ you just need this and can continue with your current jackets and use them with multiple jackets.