Avegant Glyph Integrated 3D Video Screen: World's First 3-Dimensional Headphones Raise Over $1 Million on Kickstarter
Watch. Listen. Wear. That's what tech startup Avegant hopes you do with their new product, the Glyph. Thanks to a lot of smart people and the power of crowd funding, the Glyph is getting serious buzz from fans and tech websites alike.
Now, what is the Avegant Glyph? It's a pair of headphones comparable in size to Bose's popular QuietComfort Acoustic Noise Cancelling model. Where it differs from Bose is in that the headphone band includes a miniature, personalized home theater experience.
That's right, the Glyph combines the comfort and quality of premium headphones with an integrated, big screen movie watching experience.
"Avegant Glyph takes advantage of a virtual retinal display, to transmit vivid, life-like images directly to the eye" reads a portion of the introductory video. Micromirror arrays and patented optics make it all possible. Thus, the screen's brightness and color saturation is also top-notch. And unlike the competition you won't be able to discern individual pixels (screen-door effect).
Have a Nexus 7? An iPhone? Even a BlackBerry Z10? Then you'll be able to send your content on those devices to the Glyph.
"Into anything that you can hook a screen up to our device can quickly plug into and interface with" says CTO Allan Evans.
Thanks to its ingenious functionality of the Glyph over three thousand Kickstarter backers have contributed upwards of $1.3 million to help bring it to market. Avegant's fundraising goal was a "mere" $250,000.
But all this goodness comes at a significant cost: $499 per pair.
Now it's important to note that the Glyph isn't the first so-called personal theater glasses. If you've ever been on a flight and have read SkyMall magazine you may have come across a product called the Vuzix Wrap 1200DX. The Wrap resembles traditional sunglasses unlike the Oculus Rift-shaped Glyph.
The Glyph expands upon this product by introducing higher quality visuals, an even larger virtual screen (80-inch vs. 70-inch), significantly enhanced audio quality, and possibly a gyroscope and ccelerometer if third-party developers are interested in making them. They also cost the same as the Glyph and don't protect images directly to your eyes. Glyph 1. Vuzix 0.
But will this technology by embraced? Evans set to find out.
"I sat my mom down with one and put it on her head," Evans remarked. "Within five minutes she scrolled onto Netflix, went, 'Ooh, there's Netflix' and just sat back in her chair." That's the kind of simple experience Evans is hoping to achieve with the Glyph.
Yet, Kickstarter backers will be receiving a Beta model.
"No, it's not perfect," Evans said. "It's good enough." He added that he was interested to see where developers would go with the Glyph.
Irregardless of price, is the Avegant Glyph a product you'd be interested in buying? Let me know in the comments section below.
Subscribe to Latin Post!
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage!