OR and Sensics Smart Goggles

[WaxMan]

Hi Folks,

When I first stumbled across the sensics smartgoggles I really felt full VR and AR were around the corner, of course the biggest issue is finding a suitable and cheap display component, perhaps the OR and smartgoggles were supposed to be together.

For those of you who have not seen the sensics smartgoggles idea take a look here smartgoggles.net the idea is simple sensics have designed a SOC OEM system that provides centralised computing and integration for sensors HMD and external or internal computing. The easiest way to understand it for my self is not from the very pretty reference design (the natalia) is to look at this block diagram.

Has any one else thought about this or encountered it before? I would love to see some one make a device based on this with full AR cameras that you could integrate the rift with as a separate purchase and also connect to a decent mobile phone to provide on the move AR reducint the actual cost again.

[Zasteba]

Sensics seems to be a try-hard VR company that targets businesses, schools and hospitals (really any organization that has cash to throw around) with extremely expensive VR HMDs (Think $49,000+). Frankly, I don't think its practical to compare the Oculus Rift to anything that Sensics makes, since the target audience is so vastly different. However, Sensics is trying to bridge this gap by introducing their 'smart goggles', which I personally see as a poorly designed compromise of a product. The reason I say this has to do with the amount of tech they tried to cram into the device, breaching the golden ratio of cost vs performance in the eyes of consumers. Not only do they have a dozen cameras on the front of it, they also have a proprietary android device, 3D support, and integrated audio on top of it all. The issue here is, that if they try to make this goggle reasonably priced in order to interest the vast majority, then they must make severe compromises in each component. So in the end, you're paying several thousand dollars for something that has a smaller FOV then the Rift, a substantially weaker graphics processor than your average computer, hand tracking that isn't fast enough to keep up with VR realism, and a pair of headphones that can be easily beaten by anything $200 and up.

I would like to clarify though that Sensics has produced some outstanding gear in its lifetime, and are at the cutting edge of VR with some of their flagship models (120 deg FOV, 1080p displays, but are $20,000-50,000). However, with what Sensics currently has to throw on the table, I don't see them breaching the consumer market with anything that can compete with the Rift.

[Edit] I did some more digging and found this quote to confirm my doubts about these goggles

"SmartGoggles is officially put on ice until later date, soonest 2014. I'm following a guy from Sensics. He was saying the cost was too high, few companies wanted to support it, as it runs android, making hackable. People were talking about Oculus rift, he said they would never be able to catch up to what the Oculus rift does for the price it goes under and still make a profit. If you want to buy the smart goggles for dev. for games, the current price is 4000 dollars, just make an inquiry."

[zacherynuk]

Without a shadow of a doubt sensics make the best current spec vr ski style goggles. Their wifi link is awesome. I do not get on with their multi.lens setup or their price... but they are perhaps the only innovators left and true vr people .. outside of these forums. They have known about this forum for 3 years plus and I know both Palmer and I have talked to them about collaboration and bulk buys in the past.

Different and yet rapidly converging markets. That's rift.

[PalmerTech]

Without a shadow of a doubt sensics make the best current spec vr ski style goggles. Their wifi link is awesome.

Their video link is a WHDI transmitter/receiver pair with a battery pack. It is essentially the same thing Pierreye, myself, and a few others have built for about $150, except they charge $2,000 for it. Not saying they should lower their price, that margin may be worth it to some people. But if you are a hobbyist, or a business with any kind of in-house prototyping/fabrication abilities, it probably makes sense to build one yourself.

[Zasteba]

You can no doubt speculate the days until they stop trying to 1up you and begin to just copy your design and materials

[Edit] Or rather, are they already doing that, and just marking everything up by 1,000%?

[Fredz]

They said they couldn't compete with the price of the Rift while still making profit, so I wouldn't fear them. Their attempt at a low cost solution for $4000 is also quite illustrative of their stance I'd say, and I'm not sure they're really interested in the consumer market, as long as the Rift doesn't encroach on their own market.

[Diorama]

I think Sensics might find it harder in a post-Oculus world to explain to their professional customers why their 1280x1024 60 degree FOV HMD costs $11,999.

Should I buy a zSight or 40 Oculus Rifts? Tough call.

[PalmerTech]

I hope they will still have a place. Professional VR companies can do things that consumer ones cannot do as easily, since cost and ease of use do not have to be of paramount importance. One thing I have heard from a few VR veterans is that the glut of cheap VR gear from companies like Olympus and Sony helped to kill the VR industry. The bean counters at the top would wonder why they should spend $50,000 on a pro headset when they could get a set of Sony Glasstrons for 100x less, and then wonder why their project could not achieve good results!

You still see this today, to a degree. Multimillion dollar total cost (R&D, payroll, lease) simulation projects are using Emagin Z800s largely because of their relatively low cost instead of putting a few thousand more into even something like a Z-Sight.

[KBK]

Note to Palmer:

Personal experience says that: they'll (competition) fight you all the way, and they will play dirty.

(I have two entire industries against me, on all fronts)

(posted at almost the same time)

My experience is that they simply reach out and attack. That this is about dollars and survival, as an overall pairing. Generally, people don't want to play dirty, but if they are going to end up on the cutting room floor of evolving life, they soon change their minds.

[Diorama]

I'm sure if there was a $999 Oculus Pro with 170 degree FOV and FHD+ resolution you'd get some of their business.
Not to mention that once 'normal people' all have Oculus Rifts then MTBS residents will need something more 'high end' than the masses and be willing to shell out for it!

But hey, one step at a time

[squibbfire]

The design of that headset is gorgeous and looks very functional. It would be nice to have sensors or cameras on the front to be able to see the keyboard while the headset is on or just to detect your hands...Neat headphones but i think i would rather have freedom to choose my headset then be stuck with built in ones.

[squibbfire]

I think Sensics might find it harder in a post-Oculus world to explain to their professional customers why their 1280x1024 60 degree FOV HMD costs $11,999.

Should I buy a zSight or 40 Oculus Rifts? Tough call.

Exactly. The oculus is so much further ahead and not in the 1000$ or 10000$ range..I guess that is why these devices have not been successful in the past.

[WaxMan]

I think the point being missed here is that the smart goggles is not a full head set, does not include an bespoke android device the cameras are optional etc. The device shown there is their concept design showing off every thing that can be done, the actual core product is the libsensics api, and hardware that interfaces with cameras, display output left / right (could easily send to and OR), head tracker and through the the api any thing you want to hang of an attached computer. the hardware handles gesture recognition, object tracking and a bunch of other video / AR processing.

Smart goggles is Augmented Reality on a chip and all it needs is Input from cameras and output to a HMD ie a perfect fit for OR, what is needed is for the smart goggles hardware to be placed with cameras in a housing that you can mate to the Oculus Rift and some way to connect it to a wearable computer / smart phone / tablet and battery pack.

While I am aware of sensics current market positioning (expensive) surely if they could see large volume sales they may think about setting a suitable pricing structure. Full immersion AR at an affordable point cant be far off I like the idea of walking to a construction site and being able to visualise building plans right there in front of you (they already place survey markers all that is needed is to place tracking markers on those.