The Best Ski Goggles

I highly rate Smith’s flagship $378 4D Mag goggles, but for the money, I prefer the complete package offered with the Anon M5 goggles. Smith does make exceptionally good lenses, though. For a shade over $200, the Preview are brilliantly versatile and great value. My sample came with ChromaPop Everyday Blue Mirror lenses (Cat 2, 23 percent VLT), making them great for bright days with high cloud and sunshine. Like my favorite premium options, the lens has a spherical-style lens with a tight bottom curve that greatly improves the field of view compared to standard standard spherical lens. I love how much more piste you can see in them. Contrast is also great, and there’s noticeable definition to lumpy snow, even in overcast light.

Worn with the superb new Smith Vantage 2 helmet, the fit here is as flawless as you’d hope, and the ventilation works especially well. I can report that I also get that same snug, gapless fit with Salomon, Revi, and Sweet Protection lids. Smith only supplies one lens here, but there are 17 options starting from $50, so remember to budget for a decent snow day lens. You’re paying for the high-definition quality of the lenses here, so there’s no magnetic quick swapping. With that said, if the conditions are changing that fast, you can always duck for cover, have a coffee, and give things a minute to improve inside.

In some ways, I wish I'd never tried these Sweet Protection goggles. They’re over $300 and lack many of the extras you'll get with the brilliant Anon M5. But I have worn them, and I'm duty bound to report on just how good they are.

For a medium-size frame, they have a phenomenally wide field of view. The toric lens has more vertical curve than the Anon M5, which reveals the slope below your eye line brilliantly. The mountain opens up in all directions. If you haven't upgraded your goggles in a while, a few resort laps wearing the Connor Rig could well convince you to part with your cash.

The bold mirrored Topaz lens (shown) has 12 percent VLT and performed flawlessly skiing in brilliant sunshine but also didn't cause issues when I skied through shade from the mountain. I didn't test the supplied snow lens, but given my experience with the comfort, helmet fit, and great ventilation, I welcome the blizzards.

I've been impressed by the technology Zeal Optics uses in its premium ski goggles, especially as prices remain lower than Anon and Smith. With Cloudfall, Zeal has taken a spherical lens shape and supersized it to, as one friend described it, “goldfish bowl proportions.” The brand calls it Observation Deck Tech and suggests you'll see 20 percent more than when using traditional goggles.

This sounds a little generous, but the goggles do offer up a huge field of view, eclipsing most cylindrical lenses, especially when looking down. I tested a pair with a 10 percent dark-gray VLT lens, which did well to minimize glare and squinting from a glacier on a sunny day. Also included was a 65 percent VLT Sky Blue lens for blizzard conditions. I didn't get to try this, but at $50, spare lenses are impressively affordable.

Despite looking large, the Cloudfall fit is medium, and while described as being OTG, my glasses didn't fit as seamlessly as with the Salomon Sentry Pro. Zeal has upgraded the traditional squeeze-and-pull lens swap method with a rail system and magnets, and while it's not as quick or as glove-friendly and fast as those just using magnets, they are more secure if you slam.

The original Dragon DX3 OTG goggle has been hugely popular thanks to its bombproof build, cool colorways, and superb value. If you're on a very tight budget, you can currently grab them for a ridiculously low $53 at Evo.

Lens and frame technology has moved on, though, and while the new DX3 Plus retails the retro silhouette and cache of cool, they're a significantly better goggle all-round. They're more comfortable, thanks to three layers of foam padding around the face; they come with an extra lens, and, if you've a habit of ending up face first in the snow, the ventilation has been reinforced.

The Lumalens injection-molded lenses are also a treat, boosting detail and clarity especially when clouds play havoc with seeing contours on the trails. They also have a tough antifog coating that resists the build up of moisture well and can even tolerate clumsy fingers when changing lenses. As a medium-size frame they will fit a huge range of faces, including my 10-year-old. But, as is often the case, if you wear wide-framed glasses, you may struggle with fit despite them having OTG status.

Known for their mulleted, moustachioed aesthetic and irreverent attitude, Pit Viper actually makes superb quality sunglasses. The company's first ski goggles are equally impressive, and—whisper it—actually look quite tame. Don’t get me wrong, you can choose zanier colorways, but the BN5000 is just an excellent goggle with one of the widest peripheral field of views I’ve ever seen. They’re a big goggle, and my sample came with a Cat 3, 15 percent VLT lens for sunny conditions and spare 44 percent Cat 1 for the lowest, flattest light. The magnetic lens swap is reliable and quick, and the shape fitted my Sweet Protection helmet flawlessly.

The 50mm strap stays in position nicely, too. Even when I was working hard with a Buff over my nose, they never once fogged up. The components are high-quality, which justifies the price, and the design, while steezy, didn't make this middle-aged skier look silly (I hope). The only real issue I had with them came from the neoprene collapsible hard case. It offered good protection once I managed to squeeze everything inside, but it’s a real fight and quite annoying to use.

Kid's don't mean to trash their gear, but it happens. If your children are too distracted to notice when their fingers are all over the inside of their goggles, or they sit on them, bash them with poles, and generally abuse them, you need Giro Stomp.

Designed for 8- to 13-year-olds, these superb-value ski goggles have cylindrical injection-molded lenses in a wide range of tints and VLT percentages. They're quite large for a kid's goggle, but this adds to the wide field of vision and certainly tops up the style points. They're built tough, too, and fit seamlessly with Giro's excellent youth helmet range. The triple layer of foam keeps the goggles away from the face, which helps with fogging. I didn't hear a word of complaint from the 10-year-old tester, which speaks volumes for their comfort.

Replacing the still excellent Salomon Sentry Pro goggles in this guide, on a recent family trip the Salomon S/View Photochromic goggles were loved by all ages (from 11-76 years old), with tweens, teens and adults all appreciating the universal medium fit and excellent do-it-all lens. They’re not hugely exciting, but the photochromic cylindrical lens adjusts quickly from light to dark (Cat. 1-3, 12-50 percent VLT). While they're not designed for very flat or snowy conditions, they worked really well with the transition between sunshine and cloud in the mountains.

The foam used is super soft on my face, the bridge shape worked with a range of nose and face sizes, and by not being oversized, they fitted a good selection of helmets with ease. At $125, they offer superb value for money and the raised frame helps protect the lenses from scratches. Even if your kids do steal them, they will stand a great chance surviving the season.

Oakley was the original ski gear disruptor brand, making outlandish goggles I lusted after as a teenager. Other brands have since caught it, and every goggle now sports its signature oversize look-at-me styling, but the Californian brand still produces some of the best. The classic Line Miner range is hard to beat, offering great vision, durability, and price.

Firstly, there's a size for every face, with large, medium, and youth sizes, and there's always a huge range of colorways and signature styles available. I've been using the bold Rene Rinnekangas signature design (17 percent VLT), but there are 18 other lens and frame options, and you can even customize your own. The Oakley Prizm lens is a relatively low-profile cylindrical shape. While it lacks the Imax extended view of some toric designs, it remains a dependable choice across the conditions, and spare lenses cost from just $62. Shame they only ship with one lens, however.

The thick frames are also reassuringly durable, and while it is a bit irritating not to have magnets holding the lenses, Oakley's use of bigger notches in the lenses makes it by far the easiest of the dumb lens-swap systems to use.

Similarly-priced to the Anon M5, but with a slightly smaller design and cylindrical lens, the new M6 is a superb premium option for anyone with a smaller head but wants the build quality, brilliant magnetic lens swap, and ingenious MFI magnetic face mask (there’s also an even smaller M6S version). The field-of-view is vast, but I just prefer the extra depth from the flat toric lens. Still a great choice, and comes with spare low light lens, hard case and snood style face mask, so there is added value.