Epson's Moverio 200 augmented reality glasses were one of the first commercially shipping binocular models when they arrived earlier this year, giving the company at least one distinct advantage. There are development tools and loads of developers, an app store, a modest handful of applications, and even customers for the $700 product. In other words, they work. It's real.
So far, however, the applications for the Moverio 200 predict an experience that is more practical than it is fun, which will disappoint those who wish the equation were skewed in the opposite direction. There is probably a future where you can superimpose digital games into your analog world and vice versa, one where the very nature of gaming will be reimagined, fluid and ubiquitous, in a very real sense of that word. But that particular future hasn't emerged yet. We've seen only its underpinnings, the precepts and concepts that will stir the imagination of developers and creators. Building blocks, only. Truth be told, even the practical side of augmented reality still needs work. The good news is that it's just a matter of time.
The future of augmented reality is perhaps the more interesting part, but we've been down that road already. This is a gut check on the present, through the literal lens of one product, from one company with both the marketing clout and technology know-how. It's time to focus on how well Epson has executed. Some companies had to be the early pioneers here, and by virtue of its long-standing strengths in projection technology, Epson has jumped to the forefront, boldly and bravely, but also naked and exposed.

The short version is that several weeks with the Moverio 200 glasses were fun, filled with several aha moments, a few mesmerizing experiences and a pretty firm understanding of what will be possible. I played games, I used test applications meant to give me a sense of the possibilities in the real world and I performed normal, everyday Web tasks through the glasses.
Those experiences were all unique compared to the two-dimensional experiences we have all come to expect from our digital devices, and therefore they were infinitely more interesting. Yet none of them beckoned me back with addiction. The most I could say is that everything made perfect sense.
Additionally, I wish there were more applications, particularly some with greater consumer appeal. I slowly began to realize that augmented reality will first see broad usage in very specific, vertical business industries like equipment repair, field work for insurance adjusters or retail auditors. Epson is seeing usage in guided training, remote support, mining, oil and gas, transportation, construction and more -- any place where the glasses can help overlay contextual information onto a real-world scenario. And that's fine, and probably better than fine because that's where this technology will earn its keep and its funding, and from there find its way to the rest of us. But I'm impatient and I want it now.
An Epson spokesman said that the company estimates its developer base in the thousands based on its developer program. While many of those developers are creating enterprise-oriented applications, Epson has seen an uptick in consumer apps being uploaded for review for the Moverio Apps Market, just launched weeks ago. The company expects hundreds of apps by the end of 2014, the spokesman said. There are fewer than 50 as of this writing.
The spokesman also said that Epson's customer base is actually 60% enterprise and 40% consumers, which is a more recent shift. One of the biggest uses are for first-person views of drone flights, where a pilot needs to maintain line of sight with the drone but also view telemetry data and live video feed of what the drone camera captures.
You can see the practicality of that, but it's no killer app.
There's something else, though. After some extensive use of the Moverio 200, it still seems as if the technology powering the actual glasses is still in the proverbial stone ages of our admittedly time-lapsed digital evolution. The brains and the circulatory system of the Moverio 200 sit in a control unit that would be vastly improved if it were today's cheapest commercial smartphone, rather than the brick of a device it is right now. I struggled with it mightily.
In truth, it is a controller in name only. It's really neither a controller nor a smartphone. It succeeds at neither, and I wish Epson had just chosen one or the other. It plods along with a TI OMAP 4460 1.2GHz dual-core processor running Android 4.0. We ran a benchmark or two on it just for fun, but its score isn't worth printing. The pad is small and rough, and moving between screens, or selecting items, or holding and moving objects within an app or around the OS is an exercise in frustration. Even after weeks of use, I found myself struggling to move between Android screens and menus, let alone manipulate something inside an app or scroll down a webpage.

The glasses, too, are bulky. We've all seen these and scoffed at them, even the lightweight Google Glass. The Moverio 200s, because they are binocular, are bigger and uglier. If you're inside of a repair shop, that's not such a big deal. But even for that application, I would want them lighter and more flexible. It's not just about looks, after all, but comfort and convenience. Those are not attributes of these glasses. The glasses weigh 88 grams, which is nearly 3x the weight of the monocular Google Glass, just for comparison.
The other aspect, of course, is resolution. The Moverio 200 are 960x540, so we're not talking about stunning visual imagery here. You can find more of the exact specs below, but my particular experience is predictably fuzzy. Everything is fairly clear and visible, but a little less so around the edges. The bulk of the glasses sometimes made it harder for my eyes to create a single image. Occasionally, after lengthy usage — watching videos or building things — I would experience a slight dizziness, despite the lack of full immersion (the real world context of augmented reality should reduce or eliminate this). Some of this could just be me.
It's also worth noting that Epson's nosepiece can be removed, allowing you to slip the glasses on over prescription glasses. The Moverios also come with sunglass inserts, and I tested these outside on a few sunny Los Angeles days to great effect.

Finally, a word about battery life. The 2720mAh battery is rated at six hours, and for the most part that's close to what I experienced, without doing any extensive battery-draining benchmarks. However, one day I just watched YouTube videos in succession (yes, it's a tough life I live) and the battery drained in less than two hours. While an Epson spokesman said that watching straight video will run down the battery more quickly, the two hour mark was a bit of a surprise.
By way of background, I have tried the Oculus Rift DK2. And one Tom's Hardware editor owns a unit, so you'll start to read about our experiences with that shortly. It is vastly unfair to compare Epson's Moverio to those immersive VR headsets, since the experiences and purpose are quite different. I also have a very rudimentary prototype of a VR headset from vrAse (pictured below), which relies on a smartphone inserted into the headset (in this case, a Samsung Galaxy S5), and is, at least at this point, more appropriate for immersive and projected entertainment -- these are not commercially available.
And I have spent extensive time talking with Vuzix about its next developments, which will be displayed at CES in January. Vuzix stands out for a few reasons. First, it will use waveguide optics, which allows the company to use the lenses of the glasses as the display. Just like waveguides for, say, radio waves, Vuzix uses the scheme for guiding light, bouncing it along the nano-etched surface of the glass, where the light escapes in a controlled manner. No projections. The glass is the display. The lenses can be thin (1.4mm) and light, they can be darkened electronically so as to create a more immersive experience.
Recently, Lenovo announced a partnership whereby the company would co-brand Vuzix-powered glasses. It is an exclusive one-year agreement in China. Lenovo is developing applications for the glasses, and Vuzix will have access to them. Above and below are two concept photos, the first being a model for what the next version of the Vuzix glasses will look like, and the second is a hologram image as seen using waveguide optics.
Back to Epson and the Moverio. Below is a reminder about some of the specifications of the Moverio 200 AR glasses. On the following page, I'll provide a walk through of some of the applications, including a few video snippets that I hope will give you a small sense of what the actual applications look and feel like.
| Optical | |
|---|---|
| LCD Driving Method | Poly-silicon TFT active matrix |
| LCD size | 0.42-inch-wide panel (16:9) |
| LCD Pixel Number | 518,400 dots (960x540) x 3 |
| Field of View | Approx. 23 ° |
| Screen Size (Projected Distance) | 40 inches at 2.5m - 320 inches at 20m |
| Color Reproduction | 24-bit color (16.77 million colors) |
| Refresh Rate | 60Hz |
| Android Platform | |
| OS Type | Android 4.04 |
| OS Update | via network |
| Installed Applications | SEViewer, Moverio Apps Market, Moverio Air, Moverio Mirror (for Wi-Fi Miracast) |
| Sensors | |
| Camera | VGA |
| GPS | Yes, in Controller |
| Compass | Yes, in both Headset and Controller |
| Gyroscope | Yes, in both Headset and Controller |
| Accelerometer | Yes, in both Headset and Controller |
| Microphone | Yes |
| Connectivity | |
| Wireless LAN | IEEE 802.11b/g/n |
| Bluetooth | 3.0 |
| microUSB | USB 2.0 |
| CPU And Memory | |
| CPU | TI OMAP 4460 1.2GHz dual-core |
| RAM | 1GB |
| Internal Memory | 8GB |
| External Memory | MicroSD (max. 2GB), MicroSDHC (max. 32GB) |
| User Interface | |
| Function Key | Home, Menu, Back, Function (Brightness, 2D/3D), Volume (+/-), Power (lock), Reset |
| Touch pad Pointing method | Capacitive Multi-touch |
| Supported File Formats | |
| Video | MP4 (MPEG4+AAC / Dolby Digital Plus), MPEG2 (H.264+AAC / Dolby Digital Plus) |
| Audio | AAC, MP3, WAV, Dolby Digital Plus |
| 3D supports | Side By Side |
| Sound Output | |
| Surround | Yes, Dolby Digital Plus |
| General | |
| Operating Temperature | 5° C - 35° C, 41° F - 95° F, 20% - 80% Humidity |
| Power Supply Voltage: AC adapter | 100V - 240V AC +/- 10%, 50Hz/60 Hz, with MicroUSB cable |
| Battery Life | 6 hrs (Video mode with Android at 25°) |
| Battery Type | Li-Polymer 2720mAh |
| Dimensions: Head set | 170mm x 185mm x 32mm (D x W x H) (without light shielding) |
| Dimensions: Controller | 120mm x 55mm x 19mm (D x W x H) |
| Weight Headset | 88g (without light Shielding / without harness) |
| Power Supply Voltage Controller | 5V, 900mA via microUSB terminal |
| Weight Controller | 124g |
| What's in the box | AC adapter, carrying case, ear hook, inner frame for optical lenses, ntraauricular earphone with microphone, quick Setup Guide, shade x2 (light and dark), USB cable, user manual (CD-ROM) |
First, a note about how I recorded some of the video demonstrations. Epson rigged up a 3D-printed contraption with a mounted camcorder and Velcro straps to hold the glasses in place in customized slots in front of the camera. Pretty nifty. Instead of being able to see through the glasses, I had to guide my interactions using the viewfinder on the camcorder, zooming in and out to get the proper view. It took some practice and several attempts at each app to get something viewable, but it worked. The only caveat is that the camcorder has one lens, and the glasses have two. So these demos are, for all intents and purposes, monocular views of binocular experiences. Still, I think you'll get the idea.
I tested two different games, both fairly simple. The first was Psyclops, from a small developer called Imaginary Computer. The title is a first-person shooter, and the goal is to blast alien invaders. You find the aliens by moving your head and changing your field of view and then tapping on the trackpad of the control unit to shoot. Each game lasts about 60 seconds. Your score is tracked, but there aren't any subsequent levels to climb. It gets boring pretty after a while, but at first its simplicity is nice.
Imaginary Computer has another game called Sky Temple, which is more sophisticated. The temple has been destroyed and your job is to re-activate it. You fly through space, grabbing gems and activating pyramids by flying through them while drones hunt you down. You can move between three different levels. The head tracking wasn't really working for me, so I was unable to control my movement as demonstrated in the company's tutorial. But bear in mind that this is a demo app with more work to be done. Just so you can get a better glimpse of it, here's a short tutorial and quick demo from Imaginary Computer's CEO Sean McCracken:
MicroRobot, from Creative Solutions, is another first-person shooter, but this time in 3D. Again, turning your head brings on the targets, green sponge-bob looking creatures, some of which zoom by lightning fast. MicroRobot employs a radar in the upper-left corner of the field of view, a technique that we've seen in other AR apps for Moverio, and here it lets you find your targets before they arrive, or turn your head and body to bring them to you sooner. This game has three different waves, although these seem to provide slightly different action, not necessarily more difficulty. There are three different weapons -- one that shoots in a single line, another that sprays shots and another that shoots objects once they are lined up in your crosshairs, but with a more pleasing explosion -- assuming you're into that sort of thing.
One thing to note about all of these games is that, as you might imagine, visual precision is a blessing and a curse. AR applications are meant, of course, to allow the incorporation of the real world. None of those games do much beyond head tracking -- that is, there's nothing in the real world that matters to the games. Therefore, the real world can interfere with how you actually see all of the game's elements. The games I've mentioned are all pretty rudimentary and do not rely on the detail that most video games do, so the lack of visual precision isn't a big deal. But still, there were times I was hard-pressed to identify a target due to all of the visual stimuli in my field of view, especially when I moved my head around to find objects.
It's one thing when you have a fixed position and, say, a blank wall, but look up and around and there's really no way to avoid the random window blind or pile of unopened mail, or whatever. On the one hand, I'm certain the resolution of binocular glasses will continue to improve, and on the other hand I'm sure visual interference will be a hindrance regardless, and on yet another hand (if one had three hands), I'm pretty sure the value of AR-based gaming will include true augmentation, not just games projected into the air.
That's where the rest of the demonstration applications come into play. WiPro, the India-based IT consultancy, built a retail application called Planogram that serves as a good demonstration. It's a completely customized, and self-contained business application that lets a field auditor for a name brand walk into stores and check out product placement on shelves, ensuring that store shelf space being given matches the space that was purchased. The auditor would use the Moverio 200 glasses to look at the shelf in the store, and get a visual result showing what matches and what doesn't, creating a report that gets sent back to headquarters, including an accompanying picture taken with the glasses, naturally.
In the demo version of this application I was thankfully not asked to go into various stores wearing the glasses; instead, I launched the app, picked a store, and then stared at a picture of the fake store shelf and I was able to see if it matched. The matching is done automatically -- my job was simply to stare at the fake store shelf and try not to get too hungry. The first time I did this, in a well lit room, it was quick and accurate. On my second try, in less ideal conditions, the scan took quite a while, up to a few minutes, and asked me to hold the camera steady. The Moverio camera isn't your typical smartphone camera, and it seemed to want a brighter environment.
One of the more touted and immediate applications for Augmented Reality, and specifically for the Moverio AR glasses, is field technician work. The ability to fix equipment -- a car, an air conditioner, a boiler, your meth lab (just making sure you were still reading) -- with overlayed virtual visual (meaning, with pictures) instructions is pretty exciting. I have seen demonstrations of AC repair using the Moverio app, but since I have neither an air conditioner, nor training, Epson provided something more fun: Legos!
I used a printed marker that allowed the glasses to identify the images to load, and I set off to build a Lego helicopter. Each Lego piece was identified in my AR field of view, along with an animated demonstration of how to fit the piece to my ongoing build. The colors were a little off from the Lego set I was given, which made the task difficult at first. Also, I'm not much of an experienced Lego builder. But this set had hundreds of tiny pieces, making identifying the next piece challenging, especially if it was small or if there were other similar pieces. Over a couple of hours of building, I sometimes needed to remove the glasses, either because they actually made it harder to see the true pieces, or just because wearing them got annoying -- both heavy and a little nausea-inducing.
Still, this kept me entertained for a while, and although the demo was really just that, and probably not the next step for Lego, it gave me a pretty good sense of what field technician work might be like in the future (or, really, now).
JB Knowledge provides an application that lets you look at a construction blueprint and overlay a more detailed and realistic rendering on top of it. Here, I had a print-out of various blueprints, and by looking at a marker on the page I raised up modeled renderings. In one example (the one in the video below), there's an indoor home blueprint upon which I could see a floor plan, and by tapping the control unit in various rooms I could remove walls or furniture. Here's a place where higher resolution images would provide for more accurate renderings and a better sense of what furnishings could fit within the modeled home. Still, the application is a good one, and likely extends just beyond construction blueprints.
Aero Glass is AR for pilots. The Moverio 200 glasses provide a heads-up overlay of location data, navigation aids and other helpful information. The video below is a demonstration application provided by
Metaio is a research and technology firm, known for its AR and VR SDK, among other things. More recently, the company launched the Junaio Mirage browser, which is really more of a world browser than a Web browser. The Junaio browser has existed as a smartphone app for a few years; it's the Mirage/AR part that's new. Any content that is optimized for AR comes alive through the Moverio 200 glasses.
Junaio can recognize 2D and 3D images, faces, and display geographic-based channels. One popular use is simply to turn on the app, and look around. It will populate your field of view with pins for recognizable places, like stores and coffee shops, using Foursquare and Wikipedia content. Unfortunately, the version we used was somehow stuck in location hell, some place off the western coast of Africa. I was getting information on lost ships from 1942, believe it or not. Metaio said that it would try to fix this issue, but I never got an updated version of the application, and the workaround — hard-coding latitude and longitude in the phone settings — also didn't work.
There are also applications that embed something akin to a QR code into an image, and then overlay 3D imagery for a more interactive and rich experience.
There are some really compelling examples on the Junaio showcase site.







