
China’s Nreal raises $15M to shrink augmented headsets to size of sunglasses - mindgam3
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/08/chinas-nreal-raises-15m-to-shrink-augmented-headsets-to-size-of-sunglasses/
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ValleyOfTheMtns
They still look absolutely ridiculous. The way they hover above the nose just
looks silly.

It feels like these types of glasses suffer from an effect similar to the
uncanny valley. They either need to look EXACTLY like a normal pair of
sunglasses, or embrace what they are and make them look very different from
sunglasses. Looking sort of like sunglasses, but not being quite right, I
think has the inverse effect of getting them to "blend in".

Aesthetics aside, I think the reduction in size and weight is impressive.

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stcredzero
_They still look absolutely ridiculous. The way they hover above the nose just
looks silly...They either need to look EXACTLY like a normal pair of
sunglasses, or embrace what they are and make them look very different from
sunglasses._

They should've gone for full-on 50's bottle bottom nerd glasses. Maybe take a
cue from Brutalism, Frida Kahlo, and EletroBOOM and branched out with it's own
pseudo monobrow aesthetic. (Is it just me, or do a lot of Brutalist buildings
seem to be trying to convey an abstract sort of monobrow look?)

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kibibu
Snap tried this. It did not go very well

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moccachino
Snap's glasses were a fundamentally useless product. Augmented reality glasses
could be quite useful.

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b_tterc_p
Am I reading the first two paragraphs correctly as the founder was a former
magic leap engineer?

Based on what they have said in the article, it sounds a little too good to be
true. $1k price tag, lightweight, and good resolution? Maybe someone more
familiar with this line of hardware can chime in on plausibility?

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ericd
Yeah, and looks like they made some of the same design decisions as Magic
Leap, such as a hip puck for the computing. I wonder if they're going to get
hit with a lawsuit.

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dharma1
having a tethered computer/SoC is a pretty obvious choice, given you can't
shrink it to fit inside the frame. Doubt that's patentable

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icebraining
And in fact, ARQuake did it first (2000), though it required a whole backpack
then:

[https://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/arquake/](https://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/arquake/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNYfkxqiB6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNYfkxqiB6g)

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ryanSrich
Wow. Those look super shitty. Sorry, but they do.

I really don’t understand the push to make AR “goggles” look like glasses.
Either make them look 100% like natural eye/sunglasses such that no one can
tell, or don’t even bother getting close. Just embrace it and make them legit
goggles of their own.

No one is going to wear or buy these just like no one is going to wear or buy
magic leap’s terrible product.

Having said that, I feel like these companies are getting us started. Once
they fail (including magic leap) they should open source everything they’ve
done so the next wave can get it right.

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nradov
I doubt they'll open source anything. When they fail, the investors will sell
off the IP to one of the big tech companies so they can add to their defensive
patent portfolio.

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Uhrheber
I can't see anything else but photos of ugly sunglasses and a lot of marketing
BS.

No photos or videos of what the display actually shows.

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Abishek_Muthian
> believes the problem with most consumer-facing augmented headsets on the
> market is their bulky size

Problem is the nausea, Virtual reality sickness to be accurate.

Addressing the bulk alone wouldn't fix the issue of long term VR use. Audi
showcased VR entertainment[1] for passengers, reporters who tried out said the
moving vehicle didn't produce motion sickness. Though a moving vehicle for VR
wouldn't be the scalable solution, I just want to point out that the motion
sickness is a definite inhibitor.

[1]:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rce5e7iBjiU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rce5e7iBjiU)

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hadsed
Is this a problem in AR (as opposed to VR)?

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Abishek_Muthian
I've seen instances of nausea reported with AR on media, but I haven't tried
any AR goggles to having faced it unlike VR.

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mindgam3
Unfortunately, they still look too dorky to wear in public. All the tech
gadgetry in the world won’t make a successful product if they don’t solve the
fashion problem first.

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stcredzero
_won’t make a successful product if they don’t solve the fashion problem
first_

How about Daft Punk inspired Sci-fi helmet? Lots of job site functionality
could make use of hard hat plus safety goggles aesthetics. Welder's masks?

~~~
ColanR
Love the idea, so long as the implementation is legal:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
mask_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_laws)

~~~
TomMarius
If it is not then the law is the problem (thankfully I'm from one of the
countries where such ban would be against the constitution).

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stcredzero
Intent is key. I would be for an extension of anti-gang laws based on intent
and patterns of behavior.

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jake_the_third
Searched for price the moment I opened the article.

$1000 is a tough sell. I bet if they somehow manage to lower it down to around
200, they'll take off regardless of how "dorky" they look.

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barbecue_sauce
North's Focals look much better, but I'm not sure that they enter "augmented
reality" territory.

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Shorel
Does everyone here really care that much about how the glasses look like?

As long as the features are good, the weight is low, the screen door effect is
reduced, the refresh rate is high, the lag is kept at minimum, it will be a
good product.

These are the important questions. This is hacker news, not fashion news.

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Brotkrumen
Everyone. If it looks bad, it will remain a niche product. With no adoption
past the enthusiasts, the glasses will remain expensive, the dev ecosystem
bad, the available software for limited and low quality.

You should always care whether your favorite product is sellable to a wide
audience.

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Shorel
I think probably it is not the look of the device, but the whole idea behind
it.

People will distrust someone who always has a camera recording their faces,
this is a privacy problem.

No glasses will be good looking enough for that.

