Ask Engadget: Best wearable display?

Ask Engadget took the week off last Thursday, but it's back, this time with a question from reader Bennington P. who wants to know,

Does anyone have any suggestions for a wearable display, headmounted or otherwise? Seems to be many out there, but does anyone have a first person experience they would care to share?

Even our straight up geeky selves have been a little reluctant to walk down the wearables path, anyone out there have any advice?

[retro @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Definitely the Nintendo ON. :P

Nah, just kidding. :D

Hmm.... there was a great one used for cellphones taht I think Engadget featured not too long ago... can you guys check your recent records?

[Benji @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Does anyone remember the virtual boy....

Ahh the memories of playing hours a day, only to find that when i arose from the console...the only colors i could see were green and white.

The good old days....

[Digital Dave @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Without a doubt, the best wearable display are those sick ass Casio calculator watches from the 90's. C'mon, you all know you had them. That counts as a wearable display, just a really old skool one!

[Ricky @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Yea, I have a VB right here. I spent six hours looking into it once just to beat the Bomberman Dr. Mario knockoff.

I havn't seen many wearable displays in several years. Whatever happened to Xybernaut, the people who specialized in the wearable computer? Their display got some pretty good reviews if I remember right from back in the day.

[Asher @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Here is a comparison chart of mostly available HMDs.

http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm#chart

[Wonderflex @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Look up the Sony Glasstron. Although their displays are very useless when there is bright, or even normal, lighting in your house; they work pretty good at night. You can hook them up to just about anything provided you have the right adapters, and if you get the latest model they made you can also sport some pretty nice looks. Just don't expect the view to be high-deff, because it's far from it. Also motion sickness accures in some...but I imagine they are the same people who experience it when playing Areowings on their SNES.

[Wonderflex @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Look up the Sony Glasstron. Although their displays are very useless when there is bright, or even normal, lighting in your house; they work pretty good at night. You can hook them up to just about anything provided you have the right adapters, and if you get the latest model they made you can also sport some pretty nice looks. Just don't expect the view to be high-deff, because it's far from it. Also motion sickness accures in some...but I imagine they are the same people who experience it when playing Areowings on their SNES.

[pregunta @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I've been deployed to the desert many times and I would never do it again without my pair of Olympus FMD-200's. I got them from ebay from a Hong Kong vendor selling the last of them. Playing Final Fantasy X via a playstation (with it's lush tropical scenes) during the worst of the sandstorms saved my sanity. It was a good means to avoid the world outside and my fellow soldiers. Also, when my crew was sleeping I could watch a DVD without disturbing them with light nor sound. It's suprisingly rugged, holding up after 9 months of deployment, and I still have it by my bedside!

[initial @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Best wearable display ever (that I recieved as a Christmas present one year), is definetly the R Zone. It was incredible.

[abulafa @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

The Sony Glasstrons were decent quality but definitely had limited resolution issues (although they were okay for Halo on the xbox). Icuiti http://www.icuiti.com is a component provider who entered the market with binocular and monocular models built like fashion accessories -- haven't picked one up yet, but the specs are closer to a wearable DVD or VGA display.

[Matthew Smith @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I owned a pair of Glasstron A-35's about five years ago; and while there was definately no level of "immersion" to speak of, it *DID* manage to give the impression of watching a large-screen television in total darkess if you had, say, mild near-sightedness. Still, for $300, it seemed like a decent novelty, but not something you'd want to use for an hour or more.

It was a giant leap from the first HMD that I owned; that being the VictorMaxx VR Headset for SNES/Genesis. Shortly after purchase I realized this whole virtual reality thing really sucked; and started drinking.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Have you seen the LED belt buckles that will show a scrolling message? Those are wearable displays that can actualy pass as cool.

[Stan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I second on Sony's Glasstron as well. Though they were introduced to the market back in 1999, they still have not lost their coolness factor. The looks are neat and somewhat from the future. When you watch a movie, one has a feeling that you are in a theater. I have PLM-A55 model and been enjoying it so far.
They also sell well on Ebay, so there is still demand for the rare Glasstron.

[DarkFader @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

In an e-mail from Cybermind-NL:
[quote]
When you have a 100.000 euro to spend we can supply you with a 140/180 degrees FOV.
It is all about compromise (weight and pricing). It is all feasible but it has not our focus.
We want to build en supply affordable high end HMD's and leave the rest of the market to SEOS and Kaiser etc.
[/quote]
So I guess an HMD with good immersion would be at least the size of a Nintendo ON including the base system and not just the glasses :/
Shutterglasses is the best I can afford right now, but the support for it sux. NVidia should make their 3D stereo drivers work on every video card. I want to use my 3D revelator with my ATI card!

[Ollie @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I once dressed up as a t.v for halloween when I was 12. does that count? rabbit ears, the weather was painted behind me, with plastic wrap as the screen. dude.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I work in a lab that does wearable computing research. We had prototype IBM displays that were very good -- low-power, 640x480x16bit, transparent (for use in augmented reality applications), and very comfortable. Perhaps the only downside is that they were a bit small.

Sadly, IBM didn't make more than a dozen, and as far as I remember, they sold the design to a company who hasn't made more.

[Eric @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

This set claims to make 3D graphics of anything you pug in (Composite, S Video). It is quite cheap too, at $129US for a converter and 2 pairs of wireless headsets.

"How It Works:
The Virtual FX receives an ordinary video signal through a wire from your DVD, Video player, Cable box or Game console (XBOX, PS2, or Game Cube). It then sends the converted 3D Video signal through a wire to your TV set. The Converter System performs complicated mathematical algorithms which convert standard 2D video into Real 3D that can be viewed by watching your TV with the included 3D glasses. It does this by creating separate and distinct left eye and right eye images on your TV screen and displaying those images in an alternating format. The wireless 3D glasses included with this system operate by receiving an infrared signal transmitted from the converter box. The lenses of the glasses open and close in sync with the televised images ensuring that your left eye sees only the left eye image and vice versa, thus producing true stereographic 3D!

Virtual FX is a plug and play unit so it's easy to hook up, just like a DVD player. However, it does have several buttons that are used to enhance the 3D experience. The Input button is set for the type of signal coming into the converter (Game system, 2D Video or 3D Video). The Output button allows you to switch between seeing a 2D or 3D video image. The Phase Adjust button switches between left-eye-first or right-eye-first video viewing. The Parallax (<>) buttons are used to increase or decrease depth perception and the Program Mode button allows you to choose from 4 video source presets" -eDimensional

http://www.edimensional.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=39

[toilet trasher @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Convert some high-heels so batteries fit in the heels, rig some wires up and walk around with a psTwo in your back pocket and wear braces to hold an lcd panel on your chest, voila. Now you can ask people in the street to play with you like you've always fantasised.

[drunkie @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Got an LED Belt for my birthday this year ... the thing is priceless (nycscrolls.com). Not only is it easy to program and change messages ... chicks love it! Got big laughs when I showed up at Easter lunch with it scrolling 'Welcome back Jesus!'

[Drowning Duck @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I used the I-glasses PC/SVGA HMD for research in Virtual Reality. We used a video game to recreate a 3D environment and all...It was fun.
The PC based HMD are 800X600 , fairly rugged and affordable (realtively speaking) they still cost $899.

I-glassses has come up with this $199 Iscape tHMD ..has anybody used it ????

[DoctaBu @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

If this means anything to you...

Taped Laptop Chest.

Yeah. Crazy. That's a laptop taped to my friend's chest.

[ZSX @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Don't know whether this counts but this guy created a "wearable" computer out of a mini-ITX board and a portable LCD TV!

http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/ambulator1/

[Doug @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Yes. I have a recent (2 weeks ago) experience with a wearable display device that is billed as the cutting edge. However, I am careful about releasing my opinions publicly. Please ask Engadget for my email and contact me.

[Tony Bussert @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I've used the Nomad Expert Technician display before. It's a wearable see through heads up display that beams your windows desktop directly onto your retina. It's only in monochrome red right now, but the image is very crisp. There are auto mechanics that work with these things on all day.

http://www.microvision.com/nomad

[Sam @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I've tested this model.

http://www1.shimadzu.com/products/hmd/index.html
It's not as bulky as most other HMDs. However it is monocular. When I tested it, I used it as a secondary display, so I can't speak to its quality as a primary display. As I remember, the colors and brightness were good and it wasn't too awkward to wear. I do remember having to readjust my eyes to go from it to a computer display.

You should also note that head-mounted does not equate to portable. You still have wires connected to the computer and power.

[Juan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

The most relevant to what you're looking for can be found at www.i-glasses.com.