Eyes on with Vuzix Ultralite: affordable (and amazing!) AR glasses for everyone

Date:
Sun, 08 Jan 2023 19:12:06 +0000

Description:
We tried Vuzix Ultralite AR Glasses at CES 2023, and they may be just what we need.

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Nobody wants to look like the guy who just stepped off the Starship Enterprise, Paul Travers, the president of AR eyewear maker Vuzix tells me.

Hes being polite here, so Ill say what he wont: Its hard to wear current VR and AR headsets for more than an hour. Theyre heavy! Microsofts Hololens is really neat, but at a pound and a half, its a lot of headgear to wear around. And Magic Leap is cool, sure, but they look odd when youre wearing them.

Vuzix has the answer. At CES 2023 , the company unveiled new Ultralite AR glasses, ordinary-looking plastic frames with a tiny projector tucked in one stem and a tiny battery and Bluetooth radio in the other. Combine that with Vuzixs waveguides a layer in the glasses that bends the projectors light
into your line of sight and youve got ordinary-looking glasses that do the extraordinary. The author wearing sunglasses enhanced by Vuzix Ultralite technology -- proof that AR glasses clan look like ordinary glasses and still do the extraordinary. (Image credit: Jeremy Kaplan / Future)

I put on the Vuzix Ultralite, and saw in the corner of the right lens a line of green text, the sort youd see on old mainframe computers in the movie War Games. It was sharp, perfectly readable, and bright as day. It was a
real-time transcription of what another Vuzix staffer was saying; the device is equally adept at displaying directions, with arrows to indicate where you should travel, workout status, text messages, and so on.

This is not, to be clear, 30 fps full-color video. That technology also
exists , from an Israeli company called Lumus. But its at least two years
out, the company told me, and due to costs, when it arrives its likely to
show up in a monocular application. (Meaning a single lens of your glasses, although if youre into monocles, I suppose they could make one.)

But the Vuzix Ultralite is here today, and it is exactly what Ive been
looking for. It doesnt have a massive battery pack (or a cord to a battery
you shove in your pocket) because it works directly with your phone, thanks
to a simple Bluetooth connection. Its not passing a great deal of video
across that connection, so theres no need for that cable either. Its just a pair of ordinary-looking glasses that tap into the power of your phone. A
tiny battery and a tiny projector are all that Vuzix Ultralites require -- beyond the waveguide on the lens, of course. (Image credit: Jeremy Kaplan / Future)

This phone has amazing capabilities, Travers points out. Why try to recreate that? For instance, speech-language translation. You could be speaking French and Ive got the glasses on and its all in English in the lenses. Stick a microphone in the lenses and you can completely interact with your phone as well.

Weve been at this for 26 years, Travers told me. His company has been doing waveguides forever and manufacturing them here in the United States at a facility in Rochester, New York. Back in the day, the Special Forces guys asked us, Can you make Oakley-style sunglasses with computers in them?
Because we want that and we call it the Oakley Gaze. Half the U.S. military would buy these things if you could do that So thats been a focus for us.

The US government recently gave Microsoft a half-billion-dollar contract for Hololens. Meanwhile, this exists. Perhaps the government should have held
out?

Check out all of TechRadar's CES 2023 coverage . We're bringing you all the breaking tech news and launches, everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops and smart home gadgets.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/eyes-on-with-vuzix-ultralite-affordable-and-ama zing-ar-glasses-for-everyone


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