Google might be well on their way with Project Glass, but that’s not going to stop other wearable computer hopefuls from getting their product on the market beforehand. Google’s got a specific design in mind, but there’s still plenty of room in the wearable tech world to make something cool. One of those companies is Epson with their Moverio BT-100 wearable display.
The BT-100 is a big pair of glasses with a cord coming down one side. Attached at the end of the cord is a controller with a touchpad. Think of this like the navigation system for your phone. You’ve got a home button, menu button, 3D on/off switch, and a touchpad to navigate. The cord is just long enough that you could weave it through your shirt to keep the cord from getting caught on anything.
The glasses themselves are made of a pair of 960×540 resolution displays that pair up so your eyes have a single image to focus on. Its lenses come with a sunglasses-style shade that can be clipped onto the lenses to offer better contrast in situations where it is necessary. The headset is certainly bulky, but they are light enough that you can wear them for awhile.
When you put the headset on, you’re looking at the landscape view of stock Android 2.2 (the team is currently exploring upgrade paths). The touchpad allows you to navigate the OS in a similar way to touching the screen. In some areas, like swiping across screens, you need to long-press in order to navigate. When you open an application like Fruit Ninja, you can slice and dice at the fruit that are now inches from your face.
The real strength of the platform comes from being able to watch videos in 2D and 3D. Because the device has a pair of lenses displaying images side-by-side, it’s really easy to switch a video to 3D. Because of the way the images are displayed — dominating your visual focus — it’s a really bad idea to do much more than walk carefully around your house while wearing one of these.
As a personal consumption device, however, there’s no denying how cool it is to watch a movie in this format.
For $699, the Moverio BT-100 is really impractical, but that does not change how incredibly cool it is to put one of these on your head and explore wearable computing. Aside from watching videos, and possible maybe surfing the web and checking your email, Moverio isn’t ready for prime time, but it is a fantastic look at how wearable computers are moving forward.
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