The PhoneStation uses your smartphone as a head-mounted display
You'll find plenty of knockoff wearables at a trade show like Computex, but there are always a few gems mixed in among the boring copycats. Exhibit A: View Phone Technology, a little-known Taiwanese company, is showing off a head-mounted 3D display that puts content from your phone directly before your eyes. The aptly named PhoneStation converts video to 3D, letting you use any handset to stream movies and TV shows directly from YouTube.
The PhoneStation's basically like any other head-mounted display, except that it's an entirely passive device, using your own smartphone's display in lieu of its own expensive panels. Any handset will fit into the front end provided you have an appropriately sized case, but the rep chose a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 for the demo. Watching video is only one of the applications here; you could play games with a Bluetooth controller through the headset or view photos using a custom app, for example.
I needed to move the two lenses farther apart (thankfully, they were adjustable) to see a somewhat clear picture when watching a clip from The Avengers, and the PhoneStation itself was way too heavy on my head to be comfortable (you're essentially wearing a smartphone on your head). Still, this new approach to HMDs is frankly one of the more interesting wearable concepts at the show, and it's definitely something that will be refined before it hits the market. View Phone Technology is just starting to shop its device around, so don't expect to see it on sale any time soon, though considering it's a bring-your-own-display solution, expect pricing to come in far below $100.
Zach Honig contributed to this report.
