Ask HN: Where can I obtain Google Glass(-like) devices for development purposes? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where can I obtain Google Glass(-like) devices for development purposes?

As others have said, lots of manufacturers have far surpassed Google Glasses by now. The leaders, at least in the industrial space are (in no particular order):

1. Microsoft HoloLens - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/buy

2. Vuzix Blade (also m300) - https://www.vuzix.com/products/blade-smart-glasses

3. ODG R7 - https://www.osterhoutgroup.com/r-7-smartglasses

4. Google Glass EE - https://www.x.company/glass/contact/

5. DAQRI - https://shop.daqri.com

HoloLens 2 is supposed to release sometime this year, and they’re saying it’ll be way cheaper than the current version.

I don't know about the others, but you can't really say that HoloLens has "surpassed" Glass, because they're very different products.

Still, HoloLens works much much better than Glass.

Google Glass is just a tiny notification window. It's not what 99% of people think it is. I'm not sure where the communication broke down, but it seems a ton of people heard about Google Glass and thought it was going to be an AR headset that they'd wear all the time. It's just not that useful. It's worse than mounting an Apple Watch to your head.

Google's marketing videos showed things like a full Google Map for directions (example: https://youtu.be/ErpNpR3XYUw?t=45s). I'm not surprised people got confused.

Yes, my point, precisely. Thank you.

Thanks for your reply. I believe it must've been from their promo video. I'm happy that the question came across correctly and the people who have responded so far took this into consideration and glossed over what you've pointed out (if it's indeed the case).

"Google Glass is just a tiny notification window."

Birth control for your face. I think is where it broke down.

Edit: I know, I know.... you worked on the project and you need to down vote.

Is it really any different to people walking around with the first Windows CE ipaq and htc phones, and huge nokia communicator querty flip ones literally more than 20 years ago?

I applaud Microsoft, Google, and anyone who tries to invent part of our future, even if they fail. Microsoft's tablet windows were amazing, they were bulky and ux was pretty bad, but at least they tried. And Google did the same with Glass.

Constructive criticism is always welcome and results in discussions that might help people who are or will be driving similar technologies.

There is really no reason to call it "birth control for your face".

Nobody strapped their ipaq to their face.

I still have my iPad somewhere. If they'd made a VR mount for it I'd have absolutely had it strapped to my face.

You seem like the kind of person that called kids with glasses "4-eyes" in elementary school. Glass didn't look that bad, calm down.

Glass failed because it was a pain in the ass to develop for, hard to store/take off (no hinges), and weak tech (battery, video processing, voice control).

Also expensive

I think Glass also failed because our society isn't sure how it feels about random people walking around with an always-on camera pointed at them.

I never understood that narrative. Glass's camera was never "always on" (the puny battery would never have been able to mange that) and even if it was, glass is the last tool anyone would use to take unconsenting video. Turns out staring at someone with your head perfectly still is uncomfortable for all parties involved and most people aren't worth burning your battery for.

Given that you can buy button cams for a tenth of the price, the fact that CCTV cams dominate public spaces in most everywhere people had these concerns, and it's far more comfortable, economical, and practical to record video on a cell phone anyway the privacy panic over glass seems to have been mostly constructed for page views.

It's easier to take a creepshot photo/video on a Glass-style device than it is to whip out your phone and take one, especially where third-party onlookers are concerned.

Sure, button cams exist, but the fact that they're concealable whereas Glass was pretty obvious means folks react more to the Glass. There's also more plausible deniability if you get caught with one.

"Always on" versus "always potentially on" is a very fine hair to split, and I doubt anyone who didn't actually own one knew what the battery was/wasn't capable of.

Out of curiosity, have you actually used Glass or interacted with some one that was using one? In my experience the only place these sorts of concerns came from were tech journalists looking for clicks and tech people clicking. General population just thought it was cool (and this is deep american south), and anyone that owned the thing enjoyed the novelty.

I just find it ironic that 15 years ago we were having the exact same pearl clutching about cell phone cameras (which are now totally fine apparently).[0]

https://www.wired.com/2003/02/new-privacy-menace-cell-phones...

Why the assumption that the opposite sex is repulsed by "nerdy"? I honestly don't understand it.

One of the big reasons my wife and I are compatible is because we accept and appreciate the things that the other enjoys.

If you honestly believe it's "birth control for your face", have you considered that if you enjoy "nerdy" things like Google Glass, you're basically advertising a false version of yourself? Is it really a good thing if your partner's approval of you is conditioned upon suppressing who you are?

I'm glad I found someone who loves me for who I am, not the person I'm pretending to be to attract a mate.

Glass is the logical zenith of the smart watch. Having to give up a hand to look at your wrist almost defeats the purpose of having the mirrored notifications. It's not the AR revolution the media hyped it up to be, but I'd bet money that's where wearables go as the tech gets better and people forget about the whole affair.

I have been doing some development on smart glasses. You have many choices like Ora which you can buy from there portal, vuzix. Especially, google glass can be bought from https://www.streye.com/.

I have been putting together my own google glass as a side project at home for a while now. At the time, I didn't look much into AR displays, but I did order a VuFine: https://www.vufine.com/ - a head mounted 720p screen. This is coupled to a raspberry pi + pijuice UPS

This, coupled with a raspi night vision camera attached to my head, fakes "AR" since I can see in the vufine what the camera sees (though AR was not really the goal for this version, but eventually). I am using SDL to render items on top of the video feed (for instance, using opencv to find and put boxes around faces).

Additionally, I want to get a range sensor and place that looking behind me, and render something in the display to give me an idea of what items are behind me, and how close. I am thinking about rendering a circle from metal gear solid 4 [0] to give me an impression of where things are behind me, and how close they are (greater amplitude to indicate how close something is)

I definitely want to get an AR setup, as I feel like that would be best. I will check out what options are link in this thread.

[0] https://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/52/51310/ps3_mgs4_118...

I have also considered building OpenSimpleLidar [0] and putting that on top of my head (I also use snips.ai on my ar build to control things by voice, so i have [1] this headset, which allows me to attach things to the top of it) so that I can generate real time images of my environment, and have it display a map, like in a video game, with my location. I haven't got to that part yet - too many other projects :(

[0] https://github.com/iliasam/OpenSimpleLidar/ [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CQ8CB8W/ref=oh_aui_sear...

Could you post some screenshots of your system in action, please?

TI Pico DLP[0] is a nice platform for projectors at small scale.

[0] http://www.ti.com/dlp-chip/display-and-projection/pico-chips...

I've been looking at this too bit where do you source the wave guides?

I never realized optical wave guides were a thing but I guess fiber optics are a medium that sort of mimics how RF wave guides work.

I used to run a startup in this space. There's a whole bunch of devices out on the market, from Vuzix Blade and M300 to the ODG R7/8/9 to the Realwear HMT-1. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. What's your use case for them?

No particular use case in mind yet, aside from exploratory development.

Gotcha. Yeah, the dev kits on some of those are a bit pricey (2k and up).

Coming from an industrial use-case, I personally really liked the Realwear HMT-1 — it performs like a champ, is surprisingly comfortable, is available as intrinsically safe, and has an easy-to-work-with team behind the scenes.

Would strongly consider skipping Glass EE, depending on what you want to do.

If you're thinking AR (Glass wasn't AR really) then Leap are apparently open sourcing their development rig http://blog.leapmotion.com/north-star-open-source/

Can't vouch for it because I haven't dug in yet.

I have been waiting for them to release this!

I have a pair of Google Glass that I am willing to sell if you are interested.

What you really want is something like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bnfwClgheF0

Too bad Intel shut that department down.

I picked up a Brother AirScouter 300C for similar purposes (assuming you're looking for a display that goes on your face). BHPhoto sells them. HDMI, 720P, USB powered, effective birth control.

Look into getting a Vuzix Blade. It ships in 4-6 weeks for a devkit.

you can make a cheap Pepper's ghost periscope setup for any smartphone. example

http://ibelieveinghost.com/

the pre-order link leads to a dead indiegogo project: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ghost-best-affordable-aug...

do you have other examples or references to news about the ghost project?

I don't but I see people making their own at VR/AR meetups

here one though it's not a periscope which is important as you need the phone's camera to face forward

https://vrscout.com/projects/diy-ar-device-hololens/

here's some other thing

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/18/15948700/mira-prism-iphon...

Hololens, talk to ms

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