Elevating the outdoor experience through innovation

Smith Optics is focused on building better goggles, helmets, and eyewear to deliver a better outdoor experience. Fit is the biggest challenge in sports equipment. Without exception. Creating gear and apparel that is not only beautiful and functional but truly comfortable has always been the goal. 

With ski goggles in particular, the challenge has to do with faces. Sizes, shapes, and individual features can all dramatically affect a quality fit. When obstacles—or a killer view—are ahead of you, your vision should be as impeccable as your turns.

Legendary ski goggle manufacturer Smith Optics decided to tackle this monumental challenge and set its sights on creating what it hoped to be the future of the industry. A perfect-fitting goggle for all-day comfort, free from light leaks, air gaps, and pressure points, with a minimum of obstructive foam and an unparalleled field of vision for all face shapes.

At the same time, Smith wanted the purchasing process to be quick and easy so that a rider could place an order while sitting on the couch watching shred videos. And if there was an opportunity to offer customized and personalized gear, all the better. 

Smith had the vision and its teammates—Slalom, AWS, and Structure—supplied the know-how. Together, we climbed into the gondola for the run of our lives, which landed Smith on the pages of Time Magazine with recognition for one of the best inventions of the year. Here’s what we accomplished.

Second, Smith has a new, blazing-quick go-to-market process. The traditional development cycle was cut from 18–24 months to 4–6 months, so new offerings can hit the shelves up to 80% faster. That means more opportunity for iterative design and market testing and a highly responsive manufacturing process.

Third, Smith has received great attention for these innovative goggles, from rave customer reviews to historic site traffic to positive earned media, including recognition from Time and the Outdoor Retailer Innovation Award.

This initiative means more than just an exceptional experience for riders; it’s transformational for Smith. Connecting with Slalom and taking advantage of new technologies help the brand stay ahead of the curve. The Imprint project represents the company’s future and continues its commitment to riders to keep making great gear that is inclusive for all and helps create the best outdoor experience possible.

Behind all that magic was a deep collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its Amplify offering. AWS Amplify is a set of purpose-built tools and services that helped us spin up and run multiple development environments with ease, meaning simultaneous development, testing, and production throughout the project. Amplify allowed the team to quickly utilize AWS services like Cognito, S3, and Lambda, shaving weeks off the process. We also integrated with Salesforce Commerce Cloud (now branded as Agentforce Commerce) for secure authentication, customer validation, and order verification.

From discovery to idea refinement to app architecture to prototyping—all the way through website, manufacturing, and shipping integration—Smith, Slalom, and the numerous technology teams needed to be in sync throughout to deliver before the first flakes fluttered toward the ground.