New Epson augmented reality glasses can connect to your phone

Epson offers a new pair of augmented reality glasses on the market. Although they are not designed for everyday use, they are still supposed to be more practical than their predecessors. The Moverio BT-30C glasses connect to an Android smartphone or a Windows PC via USB-C, unlike previous Epson Moverio products, which connected to a custom Android controller box. They cost $ 499 and will be shipped in June of this year.

Moverio is a relatively old augmented reality brand. his BT-100 glasses launched in 2011, before Google Glass or the Microsoft HoloLens. BT-30C glasses can not be worn as ordinary glasses. They are bulky and still heavy, they weigh 95 grams. They are not as technically sophisticated as HoloLens or Magic Leap One, which project semi-realistic images into real space. The glasses pin essentially screens in flight and allow you to control them with a phone.

In my brief demonstration, however, they do this well. I have a sharp and bright image, but with the field of view restrictions that I have used to look for in anti-stress helmets. (The glasses have a 23 degree FOV, which is small, even by these standards.) The BT-30C also seems to offer better fit options for smaller heads than the old Epson glasses, which slid off my face .

Epson Moverio

And they do not project that one application. You can load three applications on three different screens, turning your head – to place a web browser on one side, watch Hulu on the other and … load a spreadsheet on the third, maybe? Listen, it's not a product I'm going to buy soon. And Epson is ready for this reaction.

Epson Moverio's product manager, Eric Mizufuka, does not yet see AR as a mass market – and Epson is not counting on traditional adoption in the next three to five years. Like many RA manufacturers, he sells a lot of his glasses to companies that use them as hands-free computer devices for workers. But you also have to reach a wider audience. His glasses are very popular with fans of drones, who use them to view a video stream from the point of view to fly. The National Theater in London allows hearing-impaired customers to book a pair of Epson Moverio glasses, projecting subtitles for plays. Even if people do not personally buy glasses, they might meet them in a theater or during a guided tour of a museum.

Today, according to Mizufuka, Epson wants to "open its doors" in the consumer markets with the BT-30C glasses. It is offered to people who are looking for a portable private screen running on a familiar phone or PC. And it offers them at a lower price than existing products such as the BT-300, which costs $ 699. This still does not make BT-30C glasses a common product, but it could certainly make them a little more appealing to the average citizen. It could also provide insight into how other companies will approach consumer RA – an area that Apple, Google, Facebook and many other technology giants see as the future of computing.