Best Ski Accessories for 2024: High-Tech Gear for the Winter

If you're looking for an action cam that's a little more compact and lighter than the GoPro Hero 11 Black (and more discreet overall), the Oclu is worth checking out. It shoots 4K but is best for capturing 1080p video and costs $200. (Don't be fooled by the coupon code saying you can get $100 off -- the $100 discount is baked into the price on Oclu's site.) While you can't see it in the photo above, the camera does have an integrated LCD on top. 

Oclu also sells a Snow Bundle accessory kit for an additional $86 that includes a chest mount. And other accessory bundles are available.

Josh Goldman, CNET's action cam guru, thinks the Akaso Brave 7 LE is a very good value because it delivers good 4K video for less than $150 and it has a front display. The body is water-resistant, but along with a variety of mounts, two batteries, a charger and a wrist remote, Akaso includes a dive housing good to 40 meters (131 feet). A touchscreen on the back lets you tap your way through its simple interface to change modes and camera settings. A long press on the Mode button on top lets you switch to the front display so you can see yourself while you shoot.

As for picture quality, you'll want to keep this budget action camera set to 4K30 with the image stabilization and video quality set to high for the best results. Also, while it offers a solid mix of resolutions and frame rates, not all of them have image stabilization -- including 1080p120 for slow motion.

The Insta360 X3 is more of everything we liked about its predecessor, the One X2. The X3 is a small, waterproof 360 camera that creates immersive 360 videos and photos. It can also be used as a single-lens action cam. Or you can use its powerful processing, clever accessories and mobile editing tools to create clips ready for whatever social sharing site you choose. It's a lot of camera for $400.

The Aleck 006 earpieces slip into your helmet and can be used as wireless headphones for listening to music or as a headset for making calls. They offer decent sound, but what makes them even more useful is if you link multiple Aleck 006 together and set up what amounts to a walkie-talkie system among friends or family members.

With real-time GPS tracking in the Aleck Go app for iOS and Android, you can also map the location of everyone in your party.

You'd think that more companies would have made Bluetooth headphones that slip inside your helmet, but Outdoor Technology is one of the few that does (some Chinese companies like Outdoor Master have gotten into the game in the last couple of years). Their appeal has waned now that true wireless earbuds have come along, but the Chips are now on their third generation with upgraded Bluetooth 5.2 and up to 13 hours of battery life -- 3 hours more than what you get with the Chips 2.0, which can be had for around $90 or $40 less.

How it works is you charge up the Chips and slide them into the earflaps on your helmet (they should work with most helmets). You want to make sure that no excess padding in your helmet is covering the Chips or else they'll get muffled and you'll lose some volume; you want them as close to your ears as possible.

Like with their predecessor, I thought the sound quality was decent for Bluetooth, but not great. That said, it's nice to be able to stick your helmet on and have the headphones built-in with no wires to worry about. Battery life is rated at 10 hours, and the Chips are sweat- and water-resistant but not waterproof.

Outdoor Technology also sells the , a true-wireless version of the Chips that costs more (about $163). I don't think the Ultras are worth the money.

There are several compact, lightweight earbuds that work well under helmets, including the AirPods Pro and Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. I personally like Sony's LinkBuds S, which are comfortable to wear and offer very good sound and noise canceling along with a good transparency mode, so you hear the outside world around you when you're not listening to music. While they list for $200, they often go on sale for less than $150. 

Samsung-owned JBL has a couple of relatively new sets of earbuds, the  and  that are surprisingly good and affordable when they are on sale (which is often). Both are equipped with the same 11mm drivers, six microphones, oval tubes and oval silicon tips. They also combine a comfortable fit along with strong noise canceling, very good sound quality and voice-calling performance, plus a robust feature set, including multipoint Bluetooth pairing, an IPX5 splash-proof rating and wireless charging.

Aside from the design -- The Live Pro 2 has stems while the Live Free 2 is pill-shaped and slightly better suited for helmet wear -- the biggest difference between the two buds is battery life. The stemless Live Free 2 is rated for up to 7 hours, while the Live Pro 2 is rated for 10 hours. Both are IPX5 water-resistant, which means they can be hit with a sustained spray of water and shouldn't have a problem surviving a drop in the snow.