With the trend of wearable gadgets catching on, we’re bound to see some great products come out next year. These products will obviously depend upon breakthroughs in technology, and today Vuzix announced a major optical breakthrough that will radically improve glasses-based wearable devices. With the announcement of Vuzix M2000AR HMD, the company is showing off its new Waveguide optics engine developed in collaboration of Nokia. Waveguide enables smart eyewear technology to be fitted into standard glasses frames.
The Waveguide optics are different from prism based optics, such as those found on the Google Glass, as they are a new way of moving light within smart glasses. Users also get a much wide field of view with these optics. Operating similar to fiber optic, Waveguide optics use a 1.4mm thin “window” to create the required virtual image by expanding a small input pupil using a hologram in front of the eye. This technology was actually developed by Nokia and then licensed to Vuzix, which integrated it with its Waveguide technology. The M2000AR is first of many Waveguide-based wearable devices that Vuzix plans to release in 2014, it comes with a 720p display, a full 1080p HD camera, integrated compass and head tracking, an electronic sunglass “tint” and impressive daylight usability with up to 8,000 nits of brightness. More information about the M2000AR can be found on Vuzix’s website, the company will demonstrate the wearable device at CES 2014.
Filed in . Read more about CES 2014, Google Glass, Vuzix and Wearable Tech.