Vuzix Announces Innovative Waveguide Optics Engine for Smart Glasses

Wearable Technology Expo -- Vuzix^® Corporation, a leading supplier of Video Eyewear and Smart Glasses products in the enterprise and consumer markets, today announced a major optical breakthrough that will dramatically improve glasses-based wearable technology.

The new Waveguide optics engine jointly developed with Nokia®, for the first time enables smart eyewear technology capable of fitting into standard glasses frames and is being first introduced with the release of the Vuzix M2000AR HMD. Waveguide optics are a revolutionary new way of moving light within smart glasses and are a fraction of the size and weight of conventional prism-based optics used in competing wearable smart devices. Waveguide optics also deliver a much wider field of view for the user.

As opposed to requiring large optics to focus and create the required virtual image, Waveguide optics use a 1.4mm thin "window" (operating similar to a fiber optic) with a tiny input pupil that is expanded using a hologram in front of the eye. Light is not bent through bulk material as in conventional optics, which provides a significant improvement in mass, weight, volume, simplicity and overall optical performance. The technology was originally developed by Nokia and licensed to Vuzix. Vuzix integrated it with its own waveguide technology and developed other improvements for its release into Vuzix products.

The first Vuzix product to use the revolutionary Waveguide technology is the highly anticipated and immediately available M2000AR for Enterprise. This monocular solution is not only the first of many planned waveguide-based solutions for 2014 – it is also ruggedized for industrial applications. The M2000AR also includes:

• 720p display and 1080p camera
• HDMI Interface
• Electronic sunglass "tint"
• 30° FOV
• Daylight usable with up to 8,000 Nits of brightness
• Integrated head tracking
• Integrated compass
• Anodized aluminum alloy enclosure
• Rechargeable lithium ion battery