CAJ Moverio BT-200 Augmented Reality Smart Glasses SUK4 Part1 Part2 Hendrik Henry

Moverio BT-200 Augmented Realitity Smart Glasses

Is Epson Challenging Google Glass or not?

It may be best known for printers, but Epson has also been working to break into the wearable technology market recently. To that end, it just unveiled the second-generation Epson Moverio BT-200 augmented reality smart glasses at CES in Vegas. These Android-powered smart glasses feature a transparent display, head motion tracking, and a built-in camera.

Now the first thing we need to get straight is this is NOT a Google Glass competitor. This isn’t a product that you will wear while you are driving, grocery shopping, or any other like activity. This is meant for your personal time, when you can kick back and play an augmented reality game or watch a movie. It can also be used for certain business applications.

The original Epson Moverio BT-100 glasses have been on sale for around a year and, at $700 per pair, it wouldn’t be too unkind to say they haven’t made a major splash. Epson is aiming to change that with a raft of improvements in the second generation Moverio BT-200 glasses, which will land at exactly the same price point of $700.

The Moverio BT-200 glasses are 60 percent lighter and significantly smaller than their predecessors. They feature a binocular display using an LCD-based projection lens system, which enables them to overlay digital content onto the real world in the center of your field of view. You can use them to watch video content or play augmented reality games, but Epson is also touting enterprise uses, such as guidance for engineers or medical professionals.

The display has a 960 x 540 pixel resolution, which is the same as the BT-100 glasses. Inside there’s a gyroscope, accelerometer, and a magnetic compass to support head-motion tracking and hands-free navigation. The front-facing camera can capture photos and videos. Built in Wi-Fi allows for video streaming, there’s HDMI connectivity as an option, and wireless mirroring enables you to stream to a big screen. You’ll also find Bluetooth 3.0 support, a microSDHC card slot, which can take cards up to 32GB in size, and Dolby Digital Plus sound. It also has Miracast built in so you can mirror what you see in your glasses, plus it will also accept video from other Miracast devices. That’s important because you could mirror videos or pictures from your smartphone to the Moverio.

Unfortunately, instead of hooking up to your smartphone, there’s a handheld controller unit with a touchpad, which runs Android 4.0. This has to be tethered to the glasses via a cord, which seems like an obvious drawback.

The key to the Moverio is the development community, and Epson has attracted some key players. They had about 5 or 6 of them onsite at their CES booth. A couple of notables were Metaio, one of the leaders in augmented reality, and Sean McCracken, who developed a game called Psyclops for Google Glass (now ported to the Moverio). He also has another game called Sky Temple in the works, which looks fantastic. Both of his games are gyro-based and you really feel as if you are right in the middle of the game. Think Oculus Rift without all the bulk. In talking with Sean, he agreed that the Moverio is more suited for gaming than Google Glass because of the larger visual display and the controller.

The Epson Moverio BT-200 glasses went on sale in March.

Sources:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/epson-shows-next-gen-augmented-reality-smart-glasses/#!E2Qsk

http://www.talkandroid.com/191693-hands-on-with-the-epson-moverio-bt-200-augmented-reality-smart-glasses-at-ces-2014/