Smartglasses information wanted

yjzhou · January 28, 2020

Hi guys,

Sorry this is my first forum post - I hope it is all in order. I know I probably should've read all the forum guidelines etc. so sorry about that (unfortunately I have depression and anxiety and right now is a bit of a stressful time (sorry for the excuse)) I'm also not that tech knowledgeable. Anyways I had a few questions about smartglasses:

1. Do smartglasses all use a computer within the device? Or do some just connect to a device via bluetooth?

2. Can you directly link your phone to the smartglass projector - or can you only send messages (i.e. notifications) etc. and does the phone have to be on (screen on) to do this?

3. Would you be able to see smaller writing or is the smartglass only good for larger notifications; i.e. could you read a pdf file?

4. Is there enough space to virtually 'split' screens? For example; could you have a video/browser open on one side and a writing application open on the other?

5. Can you link multiple devices to a smartglass? I.e. a Tap keyboard, a mouse, a keyboard and a phone?

6. How can a person create their own budget smartglass that has these 5 features?

7. How could a person then modify this device to allow the smartglass to store items such as videos etc. and allow storage devices to be plugged in?

Thank you and best wishes,

Yjzhou (A 19 year old computer science student (suffering from mental health issues but trying his best to finally make his mark on the world) )

Spakes · January 28, 2020

48 minutes ago, yjzhou said:

1. Do smartglasses all use a computer within the device? Or do some just connect to a device via bluetooth?

Every electronic device is a computer of some sort, with its own CPU, RAM and EEPROM. Smart glasses like "Google Glass" aren't exception. Question is what kind of hardware is there: arduino-like or something like Raspberry Pi Zero? That determines most of functionality of glasses.

50 minutes ago, yjzhou said:

2. Can you directly link your phone to the smartglass projector - or can you only send messages (i.e. notifications) etc. and does the phone have to be on (screen on) to do this?

Again, depends on model of aformentioned glasses. Mostly those can carry only messages. Though, there are rare exceptions like Google glass. We are not considering Windows Mixed Reality Headsets, that's worth mentioning, those are another level of wearable tech.

52 minutes ago, yjzhou said:

3. Would you be able to see smaller writing or is the smartglass only good for larger notifications; i.e. could you read a pdf file?

You can test it with your phone. See, how small of a text you can read without any problem while having your phone close to your eyes. Add to that result 1-2 points and you'll most probably get something that you can read effortlessly. Which brings us to pdf files... Even if system could read those (like e-readers), you'll have hard time reading those unless you have a big enough screen with decent resolution. So, if you want something like that in smart glasses, fb2 to the rescue.

56 minutes ago, yjzhou said:

4. Is there enough space to virtually 'split' screens? For example; could you have a video/browser open on one side and a writing application open on the other?

Depends on what you want to have on different sides of your screen. If video from something like youtube and, say, maps, I'd say it's doable, but pointless since you'll have hard time getting info from any of those windows.

58 minutes ago, yjzhou said:

5. Can you link multiple devices to a smartglass? I.e. a Tap keyboard, a mouse, a keyboard and a phone?

Depends on whether your device supports BT 5.0, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a requirement for multiconnectivity support. May be wrong, though. It all depends on what types of devices you're trying to connect. Maybe simultaneous keyboard + mouse connection over BT might work.

1 hour ago, yjzhou said:

6. How can a person create their own budget smartglass that has these 5 features?

If by "budget" you mean something like 400+ $US, then Raspberry Pi Zero or something similar, special lenses and projectors that are going to be bulky af, most probably. Though, don't quote me on bulky side of things.

1 hour ago, yjzhou said:

7. How could a person then modify this device to allow the smartglass to store items such as videos etc. and allow storage devices to be plugged in?

Well, unless you can add SD card expansion support to your SoC and drivers (if it isn't present, which would require rewriting firmware and drivers), codec support on OS level, there is almost no way you can modify current SoCs to have those. But that's rare, usually those little PCs like Raspberry Pi already have MicroSD slot, so that you could use your SD card as both storage for files AND boot drive with OS on it.

Bombastinator · January 28, 2020

There’s more than one kind. Mostly they’re some sort of video monitor that connects to another computer be it a phone or whatever. What they can display also varies a lot.