Dark Shadow trades Blank Mat's flat black for a pale gun-grey gloss, the kind of finish that shifts between silver and steel depending on the light rather than sitting at one fixed shade — Shark's own colour naming calls it Gun Silver, and the gloss topcoat is doing real work here, catching reflections along the shell's curves in a way the matte decor in this line deliberately does not. Where Blank Mat disappears into its own shape, this one is built to be seen from across a car park, LED system or not.

An open face with a light built in

The Skwal i3 Jet takes the closed-face Skwal i3's core idea — an active LED brake light integrated into the shell, driven by its own accelerometer rather than wired to the motorcycle — and builds it onto an open shell instead. Three modes cycle from a single button on the shell: smart brake lights on their own, position lights combined with smart brake lights, and flashing position lights combined with smart brake lights. There is no Bluetooth pairing anywhere in this system; it runs on its own sensor logic, full stop.

Whether it's road-legal here, honestly

The owner's manual Shark publishes specifically for this helmet — its own 175-page document, separate from the closed-face i3's manual — states directly: check that your country's legislation does not place restrictions on the use of LEDs. No E-mark or type-approval reference for the light is given anywhere in it. ECE 22.06 covers the shell's ability to protect your head in an impact, not the legality of a light fitted to it, and this listing found no source, manufacturer or independent, that resolves the German road-legal question either way. Treat it as genuinely open, not settled.

No chin bar, said plainly

Underneath the gloss and the electronics, this is still an open-face shell, and an open-face shell has no chin bar. There is no structural guard across your jaw below the visor line, on this decor or any other version of this helmet. That is the cost of the open field of view and the quick on/off a jet shape offers, stated here rather than left for a rider to discover only after the helmet is already off.

What ECE 22.06 actually tests

ECE 22.06 is the certification carried on this shell, the standard that took over from 22.05 as the EU's mandatory approval for newly homologated helmets from January 2024. What changed is substantial: eighteen strike points instead of five, several impact speeds rather than one, and a new oblique-impact test against an abrasive anvil that the old standard never ran, scoring rotational force from a glancing hit rather than only the straight-line force of a drop. The LED hardware and the visor both stay fitted through testing. The price sheet reads Norme 2206, no FIM suffix — a road standard, not a race one.

Weight as a number your neck carries all day

1,425 g for the first shell size is Shark's own figure, unchanged across every current decor of this helmet including this one — the gloss finish adds no meaningful mass over the matte decor in this line. That number rides above your neck for as long as the helmet is on, not only in the instant it is built to protect you, and it is worth weighing that against a full-face LED helmet before assuming lighter always means better for your particular ride.

Ventilation and the light system together

Two front intakes and two rear extractors move air along a short, direct path with no chin bar to route around. The LED hardware sits in the rear spoiler, clear of that airflow path rather than sitting inside it.

Visor: VZ670, side-locking

This shell's visor comes from the VZ670 family, shared with the plain Skwal Jet and the Skwal Jet Cup rather than the closed-face i3's own visor group. It locks from the side, carries a vortex generator built into its edge, and ships with a Pinlock 70 insert and an integrated drop-down sun visor as standard fitment, not optional add-ons. Shark's own documentation for this visor family does not state an optical-class rating, so none is claimed here.

Charging and runtime

Charging runs over USB-C, the cable kept inside the neck protection between uses rather than a separate accessory to track down. Shark quotes roughly three hours to a full charge and up to twelve hours of runtime in flashing mode — figures worth building a multi-day trip's charging routine around rather than assuming.

Wind noise, honestly

The gloss finish changes nothing about how this shell behaves at speed: an open face is louder than a full-face by construction, with no chin bar sealing air from your ears, and this decor is exactly as affected by that as the matte one in this same line. No decibel figure is published, so none is invented here.

Where the Skwal i3 Jet sits on price

The plain Skwal Jet opens Shark's open-face ladder from €189.99, the Skwal Jet Cup from €239.99, and the RS Jet pairing runs €249.99 to €319.99 — none of them carrying any light system. This helmet, with its full active LED, runs €289.99 to €349.99 across its decor range, this gloss finish included, positioned above every light-free open-face model Shark currently sells.

Spare parts, later

The VZ670 visor and its Pinlock 70 insert are stocked under Shark's own part numbers shared with the Skwal Jet and Skwal Jet Cup, two other current models — a scuffed visor on this decor is a routine replacement, not a reason to look at a different helmet.

What this helmet does not have

No SHARP rating exists for this helmet — older Shark models under the Skwal name have been tested, this one has not, and no result is carried over. No MIPS, no optical-class figure, no published noise number, and no Bluetooth or companion app for the LED system, which runs entirely on its own onboard sensor.

In the box

The helmet ships with the visor fitted, its Pinlock 70 insert already mounted, the USB-C charging cable stowed in the neck protection, reflective bands, and documentation covering the 5-year warranty and the LED system's own instructions, including the note about checking your own country's legislation before relying on the light.