David Bonelli (Pulsar) on Building AR Hardware that Actually Works

The Guest

David Bonelli is the founder and CEO of Pulsar, a company of mechanical and optical experts dedicated to solving the hard problems of AR hardware.

David is a U.S. Army veteran who went on to spend several years at the once-venerable Osterhout Design Group (ODG). After creating cutting-edge AR glasses at ODG, he also spent time at Rokid and KFS Industries. Across these companies he designed, managed, and brought to manufacture a range of products spanning optical engineering and augmented reality hardware. It was this set of experiences that really motivated the creation of Pulsar with the goal of lowering the hardware barriers to entry and speeding the design to market timeline.

At Pulsar he’s worked with companies such as Red6, Qwake, Microsoft, and others on AR hardware solutions to meet the needs of everyone from fighter pilots to firefighters to space explorers.

David Bonelli

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Pulsar

The Conversation

In this conversation, we chat about those projects as well as his experience at ODG building devices such as the R-8. He still uses an ODG R-8 to educate customers on what’s been done and what’s possible, including how much FOV is really necessary to deliver a quality experience.

We go on to talk about the current state of AR hardware and his highlights from the recent SPIE AR/VR conference at Photonics West. David also shares his opinions about which display and optics technologies have the best chance of winning over the long term.

Jason McDowallconsumer, enterprise, hardware, micro displays, optics