Tag Archives: AR Headset

This mixed reality headset gives you a cyberpunk makeover for the Metaverse

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Some people might welcome the Metaverse more willingly if they get to wear a cool headset like this.

In the ideal future, or at least in the future envisioned by Metaverse proponents, the virtual and the physical will be so integrated that you will no longer need special gear to see holograms and virtual characters in your surroundings. Until that day comes, however, we will have to settle for wearing VR and AR headsets, collectively referred to as “mixed reality,” many of which still come in bulky, uncomfortable, or unattractive designs. We are, however, getting to the point where hardware is getting more compact and manageable, and one concept tries to imagine a more stylish headset that wouldn’t look out of place in a futuristic world, especially if our world is really heading into a more cyberpunk-like future.

Designer: Anoop VM

VR and AR headsets have always looked geeky, but they don’t necessarily have to be that way. Current designs are largely limited by the hardware components that have to be crammed inside, but that situation isn’t going to last forever. Eventually, those components will become so small that it would be possible to have the same amount of hardware inside a much more compact headset that can be as stylish as it is functional.

Maya is an exploration into what a mixed headset can look like when all those pieces have fallen into place. Its sleek design and visor-like form easily mark it as something out of a cyberpunk or sci-fi world. That said, the designer also took inspiration from other visions of the future, particularly those with cleaner environments and less dreary atmospheres. The result is a headset that won’t look out of place, whichever direction our world takes.

The mixed reality headset concept isn’t actually that far from what current technologies and designs exist today. There is, for example, a USB-C port that can be connected to an external computer, as well as cups that serve both as anchor points on the head as well as earphones. The headset, however, is also designed for more comfort and flexibility than most headsets are today. The front, for example, can be tilted up to give the wearer an unobstructed (and non-augmented) view of the real world when not in use.

Such designs will be necessary if mixed reality is to become more approachable, even for geekier crowds. Not everyone will be keen on strapping a headset on their heads to dive into the Metaverse or other virtual worlds, especially if they will look ridiculous wearing it. Ideally, we’d be wearing less conspicuous gear like AR glasses, but the Maya mixed reality headset concept looks like a more reachable design for now, and it will definitely appeal to some classes of people who want to rock a cyberpunk style even in real life.

The post This mixed reality headset gives you a cyberpunk makeover for the Metaverse first appeared on Yanko Design.

Facebook just filed a patent for a baseball cap with a built-in AR headset and it looks terribly cringe

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This is an opinion piece. All views expressed in this article belong to me, the editor.

I don’t believe in punching down. As the editor of a pretty well-to-do design magazine, it makes little sense to call out individual designers and students over their work. I do, however, believe in being able to hold larger companies and billion-dollar OEMs to a different standard. There is power in being able to critique designs and help the world understand what’s measurably good and what isn’t… which is why I think it’s alright to sometimes critically look at Apple’s Cheesegrater Mac, the Tesla Cybertruck, or in this case, Facebook’s AR Baseball Cap which is frankly ugly enough to make Google Glass look cutting-edge.

Outlined in a patent filed back in 2019, and spotted just this week by Founders Legal, it looks like Facebook’s working on a more accessible AR headset that can be worn everyday, anywhere. The AR headset exists as a snapback-style cap (although there’s a fedora version too) with a flip-to-open display built into its visor. Facebook describes the design for its forward-thinking headgear as an alternative to traditional AR headsets and goggles that can often appear thick and clunky. In doing so, instead of opting for a more sci-fi design, Facebook believes that integrating the headgear into something like a cap or hat that people wear around every day, is a much better solution. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help cringing at the very thought of a sci-fi fedora. In fact, Facebook even indicates that this foldable display system can easily integrate into different cap styles, including potentially even (and this was actually referenced in the patent file) cowboy hats.

Gizmodo writes: It might look extremely silly, but in its patent filing Facebook says there are some notable advantages of a design like this. It makes it easier to position potentially hot electronics farther away from someone’s face, thereby increasing overall comfort and wearability. The length of the visor also makes it easy for Facebook to position AR components like cameras, sensors, etc. It sounds practical in theory, but looks far from aesthetic if you ask me for my completely subjective opinion. The idea of having to wear a cap so that I can access AR functions seems odd. Not to mention the fact that casualwear and cutting-edge tech don’t necessarily go hand in hand. It’s an incredibly delicate tightrope when you’re walking between tech and fashion – Apple’s excelled in this domain, Google’s had a few hits and misses. I don’t think Facebook’s got this one in the bag.

With news about Apple working on AR glasses, it would almost seem like the sensible move to adopt that direction too. More than 70% of all adults wear glasses as opposed to probably the 20-ish percent who wear baseball caps and fedoras on a daily basis. That’s discounting the fact that an even smaller number of people actually wear caps indoors. Besides, I really don’t know if there’s any data on how many people want cyberpunkish fedoras with built-in AR displays. Those numbers are yet to be collected.

Images Credits: Andrew Bosworth (Facebook Technologies, LLC.)

Qualcomm has a new reference headset to help fast-track AR development

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Qualcomm pulled back the curtain on a mixed reality headset design based on its high-powered XR2 chipset around this time last year, but it still isn’t done with the processor that precedes that one. The company announced today that it will release a...

This AR Headset concept ditches the front-heavy design for a uniformly distributed design

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Some people would equate the Wacko AR Headset to a halo that sits around your head (I’m one of them). Rather than having a form that is much too influenced by the heavy, toaster-shaped VR headsets we see today, the Wacko AR Headset by Yash Gupte (who goes by the moniker Wacko Designs on social media) is uniformly designed with mass that’s distributed around your head. I imagine this makes the AR headset a whole lot comfortable to wear, a feature that’s only further enforced by the cushions both on the front as well as the back.

Slip it on and switch it on, and the Wacko AR Headset instantly immerses you in a world upgraded by a secondary layer of reality superimposed on the first. Three wide-angle lenses on the front help capture the world in front of you, while the viewfinders on the inside give you a stunning 200° wide viewing angle to truly immerse you. Controls on the side (near the temple) let you power the headset as well as increase or decrease volume, while tapered holes right in front of the controls act as speaker units, playing audio directly into your ear without covering them. Finally, air-intakes on the top (near the forehead) keep the headset cool, while an adjustable cushion on the back gives you a secure fitting while you browse through AR/VR content.

Designer: Yash Gupte (Wacko Designs)

The AR Headset that puts sound first

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Jonggun Kim realizes something pretty important with AR and VR adoption. We’re less likely to adopt it if it’s alien to our current lifestyle. No one currently carries (or needs to carry) a VR or AR headset with them so the only way to make them more widespread is to actively integrate them into one’s way of living.

No one carries headsets around with them, but there’s a large portion of the population that carries headphones with them. Realizing that, the Prism is an AR headset that transforms into an innocuous pair of headphones. With a HUD that slides upwards and downwards, you can turn the Prism from an immersive audio-visual AR experience, to a pair of headphones. Giving you the power to switch between modes, the Prism does something clever by making you actively adopt one technology by providing you with an alternative that seems more acceptable and commonplace. The headphones get used pretty much every day, while the Prism weans you onto AR by constantly being an available option that’s just one HUD-swivel away!

Designer: Jonggun Kim

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The world’s first phone-based AR headset!

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Remember when the Oculus Rift was announced?? We went crazy at the prospect, however the biggest breakthrough for us, the consumer, came when Google announced the Cardboard, a makeshift device that used your phone (the very gadget in your pocket right now!) as a medium to view VR content. The cardboard spawned millions of copies, in paper, plastic, neoprene, etc… bringing VR to the consumer.

The Mira Prism is the Cardboard of Augmented Reality. Bringing AR to consumers, not through the phone’s camera but rather in the form of a headset, the Mira Prism uses your phone’s screen to project content on a visor sitting in front of your eyes. While a rather rudimentary solution, the better your phone’s screen (brightness, contrast), the better the hologram.

The Prism works purely on an ingenious idea, and reflection. The visor isn’t flat, but rather has two curves, allowing the content to be projected without distortion. The app which runs on your phone uses it accelerometer, along with the front-facing camera for image-recognition and gauging distances (it works using tracking graphic, instead of mapping your environment). It then creates a projection with a black background on the screen which gets picked up by the visor. You see only the object, and not the black part of the screen. Objects move in real-time based on their location and adapt to your viewing angle, as would be expected of an AR headset.

The Mira is up for pre-order at just $99, that’s 30 times lower than the Microsoft Hololens, and it even comes with a remote for controlling projections, scaling them up/down, or rotating them. We’re basically literally one app-update away from playing Clash of the Clans on our coffee tables!

Designer: Mira Labs

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Augmented Awesomeness!

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I heard a very profound quote about the AR/VR future the other day. It was about how AR surpasses VR in possibilities, because of its ability to superimpose virtual on top of real. AR, the quote implied, is the work, while VR is the vacation. While most large companies like Magic Leap haven’t really begun retailing (or even releasing) their technologies, there are other companies in the mix giving AR a shot. Daqri’s smart glasses that debuted at CES last year look like the granddaddy of the 3D specs you wear at the movies. The flat glass on the front, and the signature lens style makes them look familiar, yet much more powerful. Image capturing and depth sensing cameras sit right above the lenses, while most of the tech (batteries included) houses itself in a pocketable pack that is connected to the smart glasses. That’s rather impressive, considering how the competition really hasn’t tackled the portability factor efficiently yet.

Plus, I’m really liking how the aesthetic detail on the side, namely the black strip, converts into a functional detail, expanding outwards to allow for size adjustment. Neat!

Designer: Kyle Cherry (DAQRI)

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PolyEyes AR Headset Enhances Your Peripheral Vision

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PolyEyes Hammerhead Vision System

If the field of view of the individual human eye seems a bit limited to you, wearing the Hammerhead Vision System (aka PolyEyes 2.0) might be a solution to that problem.

The human body has plenty of limitations (in Battlestar Galactica, Brother Cavil emphasizes some of them in his ‘I don’t Want to Be Human!‘ speech), but technology can help us overcome at least some of them. The PolyEyes 2.0 AR headset gives its wearer a field of view larger than 180 degrees. Add to that the fact that the “eyes” can move independently, and you get some sort of big-headed animals.

Interactive Architecture Lab, the developer of PolyEyes 2.0, explained how the AR helmet fits in the big picture:

“You are alone in the room, except for two Raspberry Pi Camera Module spinning in the dim light. You use PolyEyes (aka Hammerhead Vision System) and through the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, you communicate with some other entities in another room, whom you cannot see. Relying solely on the Exo-skeletical Suit Controller, you must decide whether to share or receive stimuli. One of the entities wants to share its own visual field. The other entity wants to send you signals from its sensing body. He/she/it will reproduce through the PolyLimbs the body movement of the other entity. Your job is to explore alternative ways for communicating that distinguish your current performance from an embodied augmented reality.”

While the creators of this AR headset must have used chameleons as a source of inspiration, the name of the system, Hammerhead, points into a very different direction. Interactive Architecture Lab have clearly designed and named their invention after the hammerhead shark, which is famous not only for its unusual structure of its head, but also for the wide stereo field of view.

Inside each of the clear domes seen in both of the above pictures there is a Raspberry Pi Camera Module, that combined give the wearer more than 180 degrees of vision. As mentioned in the developer’s description, the Hammerhead Vision System is part of a larger conceptual suit, or exosuit, if you want, that Interactive Architecture Labs sees as “part of a continuing process of upgrading the human entity.”

It didn’t take long for people to question whether the Hammerhead Vision System could have any real-world applications. One of the first things that pops to mind is that it could be used by the military, but for that, it would have to be drastically reduced, unless you want soldiers to become better targets. Not at last, people have started to point out similarities between a human wearing the Hammerhead Vision System and the characters from the Warframe video game. Despite the rather consumer-centric video that you can watch above, there are no details of PolyEyes 2.0’s commercial availability or a price, so I cannot help but wander if this is ever going to make it past the concept stage.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the FOVE eye tracking VR headset, or Razer’s VR headset that includes a Leap Motion hand tracking sensor.

via Kotaku