In this category, we have combined three specific subspecies of gadgets: augmented reality helmets, video glasses, and augmented reality glasses.
What is the difference between these devices? And what, on the contrary, do these products have in common? To make things clear, here are the definitions for each of them.
Video glasses – a mobile screen, usually with a stereo effect and a complex system of lenses, which feed a separate image to each eye of the viewer. They are designed for viewing high quality video in any environment. Lovers of long journeys can grab them on the train! Dachnikov with video glasses will turn your flimsy house into a mega-cinema center! And at home any movie buff will find them worthy use.
The device is designed for personal viewing of movies and commercials – to see the content, which looks at a person with video glasses, other people can not! As the saying goes, “schoolchildren will appreciate. If you know what I mean…
Augmented reality glasses – the technology of these gadgets is similar to that of video glasses. However, here we are dealing with a semi-transparent screen. The OS of this gadget “draws” the picture of augmented reality on top of real objects. It is created both for interactive interaction with the space (improved navigator, information about landmarks), and for entertainment (the ability to arrange a “shooter” in real scenery, a good base for “office games”).
Virtual reality helmets – a device that allows you to partially immerse yourself in the world of virtual reality, creating a visual and acoustic effect of presence in the simulated space. You put such a thing on your head… and you see, hear, and even feel “another world”. Not in the sense that you go straight to your “death”. No. You calmly travel on the surface of Mars, turn into an ancient gladiator and beat your opponent alive with a samurai sword! With a full sense of immersion in virtual reality!
The name “helmet” is rather conventional: modern models are much more like goggles than a helmet. Great for gameplay, to a lesser extent – for watching videos. Perfect helmet BP performs both screen and manipulator functions.
Key features: imaging technology, viewing angle, impact on health.
Image output technology. The main difficulty in choosing a helmet is that their developers are still experimenting and “looking for themselves”. Someone thinks the best way to display the image on a single OLED-display. Someone proposes to project the picture directly on the retina. We can not “give our vote” for any of these technologies – both seem to us not tested enough. So our advice is simple: pay attention to such trivial indicators as color rendering, response speed, anti-aliasing… and to how you feel inside the helmet.
Viewing angle: A key parameter for video glasses and virtual reality helmets. Do you agree, it is hard to believe in “virtual reality” when it is limited in your eyes by the limits of the electronic screen? Starting from 100 degrees the viewing angle gives a little effect of real immersion in a video or game. By the way, in gaming the viewing angle is worth its weight in gold. After all, in the same shooters, every viewed centimeter of the “battlefield” is an additional gaming advantage.
Impact on health: The developers of virtual reality helmets, augmented reality glasses and video glasses have not yet convinced the world that their devices are harmless to health. Many users of these gizmos complain about motion sickness, blurred vision, and headaches after using these gadgets. People who are farsighted or nearsighted, for example, need to pick up helmets and glasses with interchangeable diopters. The gadget does not have a lens-fitting function? Send it to the furnace. Do the same with gadgets that make you sick in the literal sense of the word. Why pay crazy money for nausea when you can just watch a Justin Bieber concert?
Price delta: it is too early to talk about “established prices”. So far we can talk about the average price of a virtual helmet at $200-300, and the price of $ 100-200 for good video glasses.
Prospects for the market: the most promising of this “trinity” of helmets seem to us virtual reality. It’s simple, folks: a good VR helmet can “absorb” the functionality of the same video glasses and augmented reality glasses. It is not for nothing that the military, astronauts, museum workers, and doctors have already shown an interest in virtual reality technology. A good helmet will allow the surgeon to perform a complex operation in a simplified mode, and the residents of a remote village will be able to go on a tour to any museum on the planet. A real revolution! Which, however, has yet to happen.