Idea AR — The Random

This is Microsoft Holo Lens 2. As you can see the design looks bulky and heavy for every day use. The problem I see with the current iteration of Artificial Reality hardware is that it tries to do everything on its own. The idea I have is very simple. Strip the hardware to the bare minimum.

Visualization:

The glasses should only have a communication device like wi-fi/blue tooth, battery pack, position tracker, and Visual Display and everything else like rendering and processing can be handled by external devices.

Almost everyone has one of those in their pocket, this is your average smart phone. Its origin started with the old mobile phones. The old version of the mobile phones were bulky and heavy, however their convenience was undisputed. They were limited to calls, messages, calendar and the ability to show you the current date and time. With time and hardware advancement. They have improved a lot, now they are close to portable computers that most of us carry in their pockets.

Processing:

Our Smart Phones have enough power that can be used as a source for the Artificial Reality processing unit. Together with your average home laptop or desktop computer I would say that there are unlimited number of options. The idea is to have all the graphic processing handed over to another device. Once it is done processing, the device should be able to send the information/image feed over to your headset. Similar to how Wireless VR headset works. I am sure that there are probably some issues with the transfer of the video feed but I am optimistic that can be solved.

Peripheral :

On another note your phone can also be used as Peripheral device used to receive user input or data for the purpose of interacting with the Artificial Reality.

Orientation:

For AR to be truly immersive. It requires accurate 3D positioning. For that purpose I believe something like an interactive node can be created. The Node can be highly customizable. It’s core feature should contain a tracker, battery, small storage and a wi-fi/blue tooth communication device. The node can also be used as a relay to share useful but limited information. Nodes can be used in multiple governmental and commercial scenarios.

For Example: It can be used to serve an advertisements on a empty wall. Sharing a map of a an airport and its gates. Assigning a virtual work station for work in office or home. There are so may examples that I could probably ramble for hours. Let just say that imagination is the limit and leave it at that.

Software:

Creating a software for Theoretical hardware is probably pointless. :) But here are some notes that could be useful. It should be possible to use your Smart Phone as an Anchor and create a 3D Map of your entire house so you don’t have to relay on a Node. The idea is that you put your phone down let say on a table in your kitchen. Then you set that point as an Anchor via GPS coordinates(right now the GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.)). So this might not work perfectly. But once you setup an anchor point in your home you can attach your phone to left and right side of your wall and map it in a 3rd Environment. Once you have a 3D map you are happy with you are free to customize it the way you want.

Thank you for reading.
Regards, The Random One.