AWE 2019 Part 1 - AR Wearables

AWE was a little overwhelming. At any given time there were 5 speakers of all different tracks, 100,000 square feet of booths to explore, private demos and thousands of colleagues to connect with. If you get "fear of missing out", this was not the conference for you!

There's no way that I or anyone could have seen everything, so my writings here might seem a little random. Also, we focus on Enterprise XR solutions, so I was interested in learning about devices and platforms that would help us and our clients. On top of that, I was already familiar with some of the tech out there as we have a collection of headsets ourselves (Hololens, Magic Leap, Vuzix Blade, etc.).

There's no way I could go into all the detail, but I'll add links to all the companies I mention so you can do your own research into any companies that you don't know about or want to know more.

For me, the AR wearables were the last thing on my mind, I really wanted to know more about the platforms and what people were already doing with them. So I'll try to write a part 2 on platforms and a part 3 on other companies and solutions I found.

Varjo XR-1

This headset had a ton of buzz around it and for good reason. Many have already called Varjo's VR headset (the VR-1) the best headset available, and the XR-1 basically adds cameras so you have pass-through video for AR and MR solutions.

So in other words, instead of seeing a faint hologram of a car in a 40-degree FOV window, you'd see a realistic looking car in your actual surroundings.

It's not quite released and it will likely be over $7,000 and run on very high end PC's, so it won't be a headset for everyone. However, it seems to be years ahead of any other headset in terms of quality.

They use four displays instead of two (Two for the left eye, two for the right eye). Imagine putting a smaller, higher resolution screen right in the middle of the Vive pro lenses. It seems like sort of a hardware solution to foveated rendering. If you don't know about this headset, go check them out.

Robert Hernandez and Sarah Hill saw the demo, so if you want a first-hand account, reach out to them or ask me to make an intro.

RealWear HMT-1

This headset is a great enterprise solution, for particular use-cases. It's basically a tiny tiny screen that floats an inch away from your eyes. It's extremely durable as well as waterproof and when you're not using it, it doesn't get in the way of your normal view like so many of the existing AR headsets do.

I tried it on and found it easy to navigate and zoom through documents, take photos, etc. It's a hands-free device so you ask it to do anything you need it to do. Even though the guy who was walking me through the headset was telling me what to say, the device only listened to me, and I could speak normally, even though the convention center was very loud.

You can use it with your left or right eye and their accessories to attach it to hardhats, etc. It also solves one of the other major problems with other headsets for enterprise use: battery life. One battery should last 9-10 hours according to their website and you can hot swap batteries if you need to keep going.

There's another reason this headset won the Auggie for Best Headworn Device, it's available today and many of the popular AR platforms are already working on the devices. It runs on Android so it's very easy to program and deploy.

nreal Light

This headset was also a hot topic at AWE. As you can tell from the image above, they are going more for the consumer, but I thought I should at least mention them. They had two demos, one that was sort of just "hey look in here to see the graphics" and the other one that the line was too long to even consider waiting in.

The short demo was impressive, the graphics looked on-par or better than the Magic Leap One (keep in mind that Magic Leap will likely have a new headset out before this version of nreal even ships so it's not exactly a fair comparison).

The glasses are small, but still not quite comfortable. They'll tether to your phone eventually, but for now, the dev kit ships with a small computer puck and controller this year, and the consumer version is supposed to roll out in 2020.

Letin AR

The quality and FOV of LetinAR, as far as see-through AR glasses go, is very impressive. They didn't actually have the glasses pictured here for me to demo, but they had lenses hooked up to a computer playing a demo and the quality and FOV was better than most available AR glasses today.

This is an image from their website.

LetinAR has applied the so-called “Pinhole Effect” to tiny mirrors and embedded them with eyeglass lenses. Respective PinMR? reflects the light from a microdisplay and guides the light into human pupils.

Definitely keep your eye out for this one.

ThirdEye X2

ThirdEye is an interesting company because they make hardware, software, they have their own app store and their own platform. You can see this as a good thing or bad. Some might think they should just focus on one thing or the other, but there are some clear benefits to having an integrated system as well.

I didn't get to see anything in the glasses and don't have much more to say, but you can go to their website to learn more.

Rokid Glass

Rokid is one headset I had never heard of until AWE 2019. They are based in China and have already had some success there I believe. Their headset is a monocular device, it is see-through AR, out of one eye. The lenses are also dark, which I guess is better for outdoors.

This approach is kind of interesting, but I think it's more effective in something like the RealWear headset.

Their demo was in Chinese and I wasn't super impressed, but they are just getting started in the US, so I'm curious to see how they move forward.

They also have another headset in the works, a headset that is stereo display and quite different. I was signed up to see a private demo of it but wasn't able to make it, so I plan to check it out around Siggraph.

One of the coolest people I met at AWE was Kieran Hall, who is helping launch Rokid in the US, so with him on their team, I'm sure they will find great partners.

Conclusion

I hope this was valuable for you and feel free to comment and give your own opinions or knowledge on these (or other) AR Wearables.

Comment or message me if you want to hear about the platforms and other companies I learned about at AWE 2019 and let's connect at Siggraph or the next event!