Paul Travers (Vuzix) on Making Small, Lightweight Smartglasses
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The Guest
Paul Travers is the Founder and CEO of Vuzix, a leading supplier of smartglasses and augmented reality products for both the enterprise and consumer markets.
Prior to Vuzix, Paul was an engineer at Eastman Kodak, innovating the future of digital cameras. He went on to become and a serial entrepreneur, having started multiple hardware technology companies, including in sound cards for PCs and USB connectivity products.
Vuzix was formed more than 20 years ago, and through it, Paul has seen spatial computing technology evolve from the early days of VR in the mid-1990s, to the highly capable AR smartglasses of today.
The Conversation
In this conversation, Paul talks about that market evolution and the current state of the art from Vuzix.
As a company, Vuzix focuses on the form factor as a critical design element when creating their products, and Paul disagrees with the alternative approach of creating large, bulky headsets that are difficult to wear for extended periods of time.
Paul goes on to discuss the use cases that will drive early consumer adoption, and the potential impact of Apple releasing their own pair of smartglasses.
We also debate the pros and cons of displays technologies, including DLP, laser beam scanning, and micro LED, as well as the tradeoffs of having a single display versus glasses with displays covering both eyes.
Links From The Episode
- Article: Vuzix smart glasses get automatic facial recognition designed for law enforcement by Techcrunch
- Article: Vuzix Announces Support of Streaming Video Services and Other Consumer Applications on Vuzix Blade Smart Glasses via press release
- Article: Vuzix and Plessey Enter into a Long-Term MicroLED Supply Agreement
- Video: DJI Drone – FPV and Line of Sight with Vuzix Blade Smart Glasses
- Product: Vuzix M400 smartglasses
- Product: Vuzix Blade smartglasses
- Reference: Glasses from the Kingsman movie, which were designed by Cutler and Gross
- Reference: The Lawnmower Man - an early 1990s movie with a vision for how VR can transform lives.
- Reference: Hyper-Reality video by Keiichi Matsuda
- Product: VFX1 “Headgear” (aka, VR Rig) from the 1990s. Plus this fun retrospective video.
- Report: VR, AR and MR headset technologies: almost ready… by Yole Development
- Episode Transcript