Meant to be Seen

i have been browsing the Vuzix forum after purchasing VR920 for a dirt cheap usd$150 comes with free head tracker 3-DOF - i guess NOT too bad.
I was wondering why Vuzix was not making any announcement then i came across this - which startled me !
Vuzix GOING HD with AR and waveguide tech.
this was demo'd @CES2012 - did anyone check out this and review here ?
i found no mention here @mtbs3d so i thought to deliver the GOOD news for AR buffs.

check this out - this may be the nemesis of st1080/HMZ as their st1080 and FULL HD is crap going by recent reviews.SMD needs to do better now else will perish by next year - the TDvisor way becoz of QC issues only , so does sony of HMZ fame.

http://www.vuzix.com/site/_support/Broc ... _lores.pdf

Preliminary Specifications:
==============================================
Resolution: 1280x720 color
• Field of View: 30 to 50 degree, dependent on model
• >95% optical transmission of outside world
• Optional electronic sunglass tint control
• Brightness: >500 nits
• Integrated head-tracker
• HDMI or VGA video interfaces
==============================================

Vuzix SMART Glasses technology initial release into the commercial and industrial markets by fall 2012.
the technology has already been demo'd by epson bt-100 moverio though the video FOV is low [23-26] but it's interesting enough
still moverio is pricey for what it is .if the video FOV had been > 40 i'd have tried knowing that OS platform is android.
i hope Vuzix new initiative not be too expensive for avg. consumer's wallet.
their existing ventures tell a different story though - but then hope is on.
i think this the 'REAL' future of AR/VR - more of AR.
Seems good news and now VR/AR is getting real interesting.

Pretty sure someone, probably PalmerTech, saw the demo of this and wrote a bit about it. The demo only had a non moving picture in the display. The tech sounds like what they were talking about tho.

If one has a 50 degree FOV, I could be interested, although thats really the bare minimum. I think the ST1080 looks pretty good, but I've decided not to bite, as the FOV is just too small for real VR purposes (especially in 720P mode as there is no scaling currently). However, from what I can see, SMD has pretty good customer service and feedback and seems a WAY better company to deal with than Vuzix, who have basically only turned out crap up to now. The ST1080 may force them to lift their game, but I see nothing in the specs of this pdf that suggests it will in any way be better than the ST1080.

Its easy for Vuzix to talk about 720P, head tracker, etc, since its 'preliminary' specs, IE vaporware. ST1080 is out now. I know they are having QC issues, but they seem to be putting a real effort into resolving those issues.

I tried out their demo at CES. It was awful. Low field of view, bad picture quality was very evident (They were showing a rotating Vuzix logo), and the tech was not miniaturized in any way that showed being close to a real product. They had a plastic mockup of some sweet AR glasses in a display case, but they contained no electronics, so it was really no better than a fancy render.

Despite this, they won a CES Innovation award. I was a lot more impressed with Lumus, they were showing off their DK-32 just a few rows down. Not only did it have better specs (720p, 40 degree FOV), it is a fully working and optimized product. http://www.lumus-optical.com/index.php?Itemid=15&id=9&

On a side note, the ST1080 might not be perfect, but it certainly not crap. It is certainly the best glasses-style HMD on the market.

There was some talk about this in various threads, not too much though. Might be cool if they can actually achieve what they claim, but at this point its mostly vaporware.