Gadgetory

hello there my name is Gary Sims from and/or authority now you're probably used to me wearing these glasses but today I'm going to be telling you about these glasses one of the most famous or sure sa infamous augmented reality products of recent times was of course Google glass however Google aren't the only company investing in AR Epson a company who you may know better for its printers and scanners also make AR products including the BT 200 smart glasses and today we're going to look at these smart glasses and see what they capable of the BT 200 are a full set of smart glasses with tiny projectors for both the left and the right eyes however unlike a VR headset the rest of the viewing area is transparent this means you can walk around and perform tasks aided by the glasses coming out of the side is a cable which connects to a control unit this box was about the size of a smartphone provides all the computing power as well as a touchpad for controlling the glasses and connectivity like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth halfway down the cable is a small clip and a headphone socket the control unit is like a small tablet but the display has been removed and replaced with projectors in the glasses inside the box is a Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 so dual-core cortex a9 based processor running at 1.2 gigahertz there's also one gigabytes of RAM and eight gigabytes of internal storage if you need more space and you can use a micro SD card to add up to an extra 32 gigabytes the guard is way around 88 grams which is much heavier than normal pair of glasses however the weight isn't prohibitive you can wear them comfortably for about two hours only then do they start to feel like a burden the optics are first class the little projectors display an image which appears to be about 80 inches at five meters distance the way the optics have been designed gives the impression that you are looking at a large screen or monitor a few meters in front of you because of this perceived distance and the quality of the Epson projectors my eye has never got tired from looking at displays no headaches no neck aches no nothing it was a pleasure the unit runs Android 4.0 4 which means you can run any API 15 Android app including games proactivity apps and multimedia apps it's a fairly stock version of Android that means it will be able to run unmodified Android apps directly just as you would on a smartphone or tablet the trackpad on the surface of the control unit is used to control a cursor much like a mouse you move it around with your finger on the pad and then tap for a click the screen that is projected by the glasses in landscape mode but the trackpad is used in portrait mode this is OK and doesn't really cause any problems except that the width the trackpad is narrow as you have to use the left/right distance of the upright pad area rather than using its longest side the BT 200 uncomely --gel play support so any normal apps you want to download either need to be side loaded or installed via a third-party app store for my testing I installed amazon's app store and i was able to find and install many popular apps without any trouble for app developers there is also the Merv area SDK which provides a library that allows Android apps to control the bt 202 splay audio and sensors form ovarian specific apps Epson has its own ecosystem and an app store called Moe Vario app market it would be nice if the Android version was higher not because there is any functionality missing but because it might give some access to some more interesting content like Google cardboard or other VR projects are being built on later versions of the OS the old adage goes that hardware is useless without software and that also applies to the BT 200 smart glasses thankfully there's quite a bit of interesting app development going on for these glasses having used the glasses for quite a while now I can safely say that they work very well just about any Android app and game I download the dolphin web browser and Angry Birds and both work without any problems the only minor exception was of the intro for the Dolphin Browser is in portrait mode however once you have dealt with it it switches back to land the only apps that don't work are those that must be used in portrait mode for example I downloaded Temple Run and as a portrait game it just isn't possible to play it browsing the web is an interesting experience if you are loading pages with lots of text and smart classes really aren't the best medium however if you are looking at media rich pages like photo galleries then smart glasses work very well typing in URLs and search terms can be tedious as you have to use the on-screen keyboard which means you have to move the cursor to the desired letter then tap then move to the next letter tap again and so on since there are no Google services there is no YouTube app however YouTube's work as expected from within the Dolphin Browser watching a movie or browsing your photo collection can be quite fun on the BT 200 s and the device support apps like Netflix however you can do all that on other VR headsets the real power can be found in a our Epson kindly preloaded my review unit with some example AR apps which demonstrate what is possible the glasses include a built-in VGA camera you can take photos and record video using the standard Android open source camera app as well as being able to take low resolution photos and record video the camera is also used by app to see what the wearer is seeing with pattern recognition and other fancy technologies apps are able to add layers of new information on top of what the user is actually seeing the classic use case is with trackers printed material usually a printed pattern or code is recognized by the app and used to display a 3d model or some other image one of the more ambitious demo AR art is probably visualizing the future by seeing technology it is meant to be used with the WellStar atrium model 4000 single collection chess drainage system it displays a our instructions directly above the physical device the idea is that it provides help and training for users of these medical devices and shows the necessary steps for successful operation you can download the front-facing target which is stuck on the front of these devices and experience the AR part without actually owning one of the drainage systems since I don't know much about chest drainage systems I was a little lost while I was using the app but it certainly did show me where to connect the hoses all in glorious ar1 fun game I have for the BT 200 is a I'm an it's basically a pacman game in 3d when you play the role of the pac-man you are in a maze which you navigate by actually walking about and using your head to see what's around you there are even ghosts this is clever because the game uses the sensors in the glasses to detect forward movement as a result you don't need to control your position in the game via the touchpad you just walk forward obviously you need to be in open area to play this but because you can see through the glasses you aren't walking around blind like you would be with other VR headsets the same author also wrote Maelstrom every hour walking app that allows you to look around the virtual world while also enabling you to move around in virtual space by actually working around in real space if there is an app which is close to being a killer app for the mo burial glasses is the DJI vision app for use with the DJI phantom drones some of the DJI drones have a camera on them which allows you to see a live view from the drone DJI call this first person view flying the app allows full remote camera control and incorporates things like live telemetry readings since you can see through the mo varial glasses then you can watch your drone while flying it but at the same time receive telemetry and a first-person view from the drone in terms of non consumer apps Epson is seeing lots of interest from businesses for example Lockheed is using the BT 200 smart glasses to instruct engineers on how exactly to build and repair f-35 fighter jets according to an interesting article by Popular Mechanics when a glass is wearing engineer is installing a break component on the landing gear they look at the wheel and the glasses show renderings of every bolt and cable with the part numbers and ordered instructions showing where the parts fit another area which is interesting is the whole area of remote support see what I see imagine a situation where someone needs some remote technical support normal telephone support only goes so far if you have used a service like TeamViewer to help someone do something on their PC you can now imagine a system where you see what the other person is seeing through their bTW 200 small glasses but more than that you can interact with their display by adding arrows circles and text so you can guide them in their repair it's quite an interesting concept and two of the leading companies are scope AR and apex labs the list of potential uses for these glasses is in fact very long another favorite of mine is the use of augmented reality by pilots flying planes a company called Aero glass has an app for the BT 2 hundreds which help pilots to properly visualize terrain navigation traffic instruments weather and airspace information overall I'm very impressed with the potential of these smart glasses this is very much a product in the developer edition phase it isn't ready for consumer mainstream however if you will your company are looking for a are solutions then the move area might just be the platform we're looking for as with so many areas of innovation the key to success will be finding a killer application at the moment the BT 200 are interesting even inspiring but not yet essential unless you own a drone that is however as this tech develops we will certainly see lots of new ideas and interesting ways of using AR Epsons original bt100 smart glasses were released in early 2012 and weighed 220 grams two and a bit years later X and release the BT 200 smart glasses now weighing just 88 grams if Ector maintains the same release cycle then we can expect to see the BT 300 smart glasses sometime in late 2016 or maybe early 2017 if the company manages to cut down the weight even further add a 2 or 5 megapixel camera and use a newer version of Android then what is company a device for businesses developers and drone enthusiasts could become a must-have consumer product in the mean time if you own a DJI drone then go out and get yourself of BTW $200 similarly if you want to develop VR and AR apps and you should seriously look at this platform and there you have it the Epson move area BT 200 artists they're currently available from Amazon for $699 please to check out the Android or thority comm website and find the written companion to this article we also find some links to some other technology I was talking about today well my name is garrison from Andrew authority I hope you enjoyed this video if you did do please give it a thumbs up also don't forget to subscribe to and royalties YouTube channel and please use the comments below to tell me what you think about these smart glasses and what you think about a AR and VR in general and as for me I'm going to see you in my next video