Smith Reason OTG Ski Goggles – Test and Review

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Updated April 9th, 2024

Manufacturer and Model: Smith Reason OTG Ski Goggles
List Price: $90

Summary

The Smith Reason OTG goggles are designed to work with glasses. They have a large wide frame with cutouts and more nose space to make them fit well over glasses. They do not have easily swapped lenses but are available with a variety of lens colors and VLTs for different conditions. They have excellent field of view and good flat light performance with the right lens selection. The goggle strap is a bit tight when worn over large sized helmets.

Smith Reason OTG Ski Goggles Review and Test

I’ve worn glasses since I was in grade school. I’ve spent some years skiing with glasses under my goggles and understand how miserable it can be with comfort and fogging. I appreciate any goggle manufacturer that designs goggles around being worn with glasses with features like extra ventilation and more nose space so the frames fit comfortably.

Smith provided us a pair of Reason OTG goggles to try out. Ours have a black strap and Red Sol-X mirror lens. As with all our reviews, we’ll give you both the good and bad points whether we bought the item ourselves or not.

Features Overview

The Smith Reason goggles are designed to be worn over glasses. To accomplish this they use a large frame design with more space in the nose area. The frame is wide with cutouts at the outboard edges so that glasses can clear the frame and foam easily. There is a lot of ventilation with large amounts of vents on the bottom edge and sides.

The frame is flexible thanks to the large amount of venting so it easily conforms to your face. The foam around the edges is 2 layers. The inner layer is the soft moisture wicking foam found on more expensive Smith goggles. The second layer is soft. There is no stiffer third layer.

The Reason does not have a ChromaPop lens. The lens uses their Cabonic-X material. It does not have any thinning or anything else special going on. It is a simple cylindrical lens made from flat sheets of material. These fall near the low end in the Smith Ski goggle range. They don’t have the advance lenses and other tech found higher up in their line up.

1 – Lens Clarity (8.0/10)

The Reason OTG has a basic cylindrical lens. Only 1 lens is included. This goggle does not have higher level ChromaPop lenses. The non ChromaPop lenses from Smith still have some layer of color filtering going on with them. The Red Sol-X Mirror is a bright light lens with 17% VLT. The lens clarity is good with no reflections inside the goggle that we have seen on other basic cylindrical lens goggles.

2 – Field of View (9.5/10)

The Reason OTG has a wide field of view. It isn’t quite as big as a set of Smith 4D Mag goggles. It’s not far behind. The frame and lens are wide giving you good side to side peripheral vision. The bottom edges of the lens extend down and forward. You can see the bottom edges of the lens while wearing the goggles just a little. I’d rate the field of view as excellent.

3 – Flat Light Performance (9.0/10)

The Reason doesn’t have ChromaPop lenses. Our review goggle has a Red Sol-X Mirror lens which is more for bright sun light. The Reason is available with a 35% Ignitor Mirror lens. We have found that lens to work well in flat conditions on our Smith Frontier goggles which have similar lens tech as the Reason OTG. If you are buying the goggles primarily for flat light conditions I would get them with the Ignitor Mirror lens.

4 – Anti-Fog Performance (8.5/10)

These goggles have standard Smith Fog-X coating which works well. It is not their higher level 3X or 5X anti-fog coating so they won’t perform as well. They do have a lot of ventilation which helps keep the fog away when worn with or without glasses. They are cylindrical lens goggles also which don’t have as much air space between your glasses and the goggle lens which works a little against you.

5 – Lens Swapping (7.5/10)

The Reason OTG can swap lenses but it is old style where you have to pull the lens out of the plastic groove in the frame. It is meant more for replacing scratched or damaged lenses. It isn’t meant for swapping lenses for different conditions. You can’t change the lens while wearing the goggles. It will take you a few minutes to do it while sitting around.

6 – Comfort (8.0/10)

The goggles have a soft compliant feel to them. The inner foam layer is on the softer size. The goggle frames are rather flexible. They will flex and bend easily to fit different face shapes. The soft flexible frame makes up for the lack of third foam layer. The frames are roomy enough to feel good over glasses.

When wearing the goggles over a large ski helmet, the strap is a little short which makes the goggles feel tight and pressed against my face. The goggles are soft so they flex without any pressure points. They left me wishing for a little more strap to loosen them up.

7 – Helmet compatibility

We wore the Reason with a Smith Vantage MIPS helmet. The goggle frame fits the helmet with very little gap. It’s wide enough to match the helmet well. One complaint is with the goggle strap. It is just barely long enough to work with a size XL helmet. I had to fully extend the strap and was wishing for a little more.

8 – OTG Compatible

One of the key points of the Reason OTG is that they are OTG compatible and designed to be worn over glasses. The frame has notches to clear glasses frames. The frame is wide to easily fit around glasses without squeezing the frames into the side of your head and ears. We found they work well worn over glasses. We had no issues with fogging or comfort issues other than the tight strap with larger helmets.

Recommendation – Buy or No Buy?

The Smith Reason OTG works well when worn over glasses. It has a large enough frame to be comfortable and to provide a very good field of view. It has good flat light performance with the right lens. If I was looking for a flat cylindrical lens goggle that works over glasses and didn’t want to spend more than $100 I would buy the Reason OTG.

Other goggles to consider

Smith Sequence OTG – The Smith Sequence OTG is also designed around glasses. It is the next step up in the Smith line for OTG goggles. It has a toric shaped ChromaPop lens. It has several other improvements such as triple layer face foam. They cost about $30 more than the Reason.

Outdoor Master Ultra – The Ultra from Outdoor Master has a large toric lens and easy to swap magnetic lenses. They include a second lens that is good for night skiing or dark days. They are almost as comfortable to wear over glasses as the Reason. The field of view is slightly smaller. The frame is a little tighter on the sides when worn over glasses. The Ultra retails for a similar price to the Reason OTG.

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