Dainese Isn’t Gatekeeping Its Airbag Tech. That’s A Huge Win For Riders

You don’t need a Dainese jacket, a matching wardrobe, or a small fortune to get serious airbag protection.

Photo by: Dainese

By: Enrico Punsalang

Oct 19, at 8:22am ET

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Motorcycle safety gear is expensive. Like, really expensive. Between a decent helmet, jacket, pants, gloves, and boots, it’s ridiculously easy to spend over a thousand dollars before you’ve even put gas in your bike. Throw an electronic airbag into the mix, and things get even pricier.

But Dainese, a brand synonymous with premium motorcycle protection, might have just made things a whole lot more accessible.

Meet the new Dainese Smart GO, an ultra-lightweight electronic airbag vest priced at €349, or roughly $400. But the price isn’t necessarily the most interesting part. It’s the fact that Dainese doesn’t care whether you’re wearing one of its jackets. You can pair the Smart GO with protective gear from pretty much any manufacturer, provided there’s enough room for the airbag to deploy properly.

Your Jacket Doesn’t Need A Dainese Logo

Photo by: Dainese

There’s a certain irony in motorcycle safety gear. We’re constantly told to invest in better protection, but premium equipment can sometimes come with a premium ecosystem attached. Matching jackets, proprietary systems, and brand-specific accessories can make upgrading your protection unnecessarily complicated and expensive.

The Smart GO takes a refreshingly straightforward approach. It’s designed to be worn over or underneath existing motorcycle gear, including jackets from competing brands. So whether you’re rocking Alpinestars, Rev’It, Klim, or some affordable jacket you’ve owned for years, you don’t necessarily have to replace it. Dainese specifies at least 8 centimeters of expansion space around the chest and back, and the vest needs to fit correctly.

Serious Protection Without The Premium Wardrobe

Photo by: Dainese

The Smart GO isn’t some stripped-down inflatable cushion, either. It uses Dainese’s electronically controlled D-air technology, offering Level 2-certified protection for the chest and back. The whole thing weighs just 1.72 pounds, making it remarkably lightweight for something designed to provide substantial impact protection.

It doesn’t need to connect to your motorcycle, and there’s no subscription fee. Instead, it runs on an external USB-C power source, either a compatible smartphone or Dainese’s dedicated power bank. The gas generator is user-replaceable, too. Dainese also offers an optional 15-liter backpack that integrates with the vest, although it’s a separate accessory rather than another airbag system. The Smart GO is intended for road riding and light off-road use, not racetrack riding.

Photo by: Dainese

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And here’s where things get interesting. Rather than spending a fortune on a premium jacket alone, riders could buy a reasonably priced, properly certified abrasion-resistant jacket and allocate more of their budget toward an airbag. Of course, an airbag doesn’t replace abrasion protection or limb armor. It’s another layer of protection, not a substitute for the basics.

To be fair, Dainese already offered cross-brand compatibility with its earlier Smart Jacket and Smart Air systems. What’s different here is the lower entry price. And while motorcycling will probably never be particularly cheap, making advanced protection accessible without demanding an entirely new wardrobe is something worth celebrating.