Found this article about them - https://painandcycling.com/engo-hud-ar-glasses
Has anyone tried these? Seems like a pretty decent platform that can be extended to work with a bunch of different metrics. I am thinking of buying it to use for road cycling and potentially running as well.
First time I’ve seen these. The approach is right (just be the UX, not the brains…get data from a phone/watch/head unit), but the execution looks clunky (lack of waterproofing is a particular concern) and the price point is quite high at $400.
I’m guessing that a wave of AR glasses is coming out in the next couple years from Amazon, Apple, Meta, etc. that will be better executed…if you can wait.
First time I’ve seen these. The approach is right (just be the UX, not the brains…get data from a phone/watch/head unit), but the execution looks clunky (lack of waterproofing is a particular concern) and the price point is quite high at $400.
I’m guessing that a wave of AR glasses is coming out in the next couple years from Amazon, Apple, Meta, etc. that will be better executed…if you can wait.
I am actually not sure why they label them as AR glasses - but they are 100% HUD at this point.
I hear ya on the price point.
They are just a display/UX interface, but AR is kinda a catchall buzzword. I typically think of AR as tech that enhances thigs that are in your field of view in the real world (ex. showing you another cyclists team/name/ftp, overlaying course markers on the road) vs VR (showing you a world different than what is in front of you IRL) vs showing you data unrelated to your field of view (these glasses, or more generally HUD).
Fair enough.
I think garmin had a HUD for varia that got discontinued. Apparently a lot of people who used it loved and went out and bought extra when they announced the product would get dc.
I think garmin had a HUD for varia that got discontinued. Apparently a lot of people who used it loved and went out and bought extra when they announced the product would get dc.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/530536
Ahhh. So that explains the price point for Engo. Makes more sense now.
Can you find any review that isn’t that one?
The author of it seems to be spamming their review all across the internet.
Hmmm… I found them via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29434307 - which was started by the author of the blog.
Not a whole of other mentions out there - which is why I was wondering if anyone on ST had any first hand experience with the product.
Yeah, when I searched for the product I found about 30 sites that link to that one review, but only found the company’s facebook page, not their actual website. Although I did find that in one of the articles linking back to this review.
Maybe the product is great, but that kind of thing would make me hesitant to buy one. That along with the lack of waterproofing would make me want to wait for version 2. Although looking at the competition, waterproofing doesn’t seem to be much discussed.
Edit: It will be interesting to see what develops in the next few years in the AR/HUD sports glasses. The Adidas and Tooz partnership seems promising.
First time I’ve seen these. The approach is right (just be the UX, not the brains…get data from a phone/watch/head unit), but the execution looks clunky (lack of waterproofing is a particular concern) and the price point is quite high at $400.
I’m guessing that a wave of AR glasses is coming out in the next couple years from Amazon, Apple, Meta, etc. that will be better executed…if you can wait.
I am actually not sure why they label them as AR glasses - but they are 100% HUD at this point.
I hear ya on the price point.
HUD = Head Up Display = What it is
AR = Augmented reality = What it does
I would say AR isn’t entirely appropriate unless the projections interact with the image on which they are overlaid. I think it’s a stretch to say that overlaying simple data on a HUD makes it AR. If that’s the case all HUDs are AR?
It sounds like there are a few of this type of product in the pipe line, is anyone familiar with products of this kind close to or already on the market to look out for?
Something like this packaged into the temples of say an Oakley Evzero series would be pretty spectacular, if its not 2x the price.
The definition we used on the original project labeled as augmented reality (a coworker on the project coined the term itself) was that some displayed data had to be spatially stabilized onto points or features out in the world; it would appear as ‘stuck’ there regardless of head motion (assuming it stayed in your field of view to begin with). The data we were displaying were lines that were displayed on wires or wire bundles that were being assembled and placed on what most people would recognize as a peg board. There wasn’t a good way at the time (1990) to directly interact with this data in a direct manipulation style; we at least had a voice interface; I don’t recall if we had any other user input mechanism. The hard bit (and one of the things that distinguished this as AR) was that we knew at all times and with great precision and accuracy both the position and orientation of the user’s head (and by extension their eyes) in the 3d coordinate system of the workspace they were in; we also knew where the form boards were in that coordinate system. This position and orientation data was the critical piece needed to correctly display the wire information. If you have that data but don’t use it, what you have is a heads up display.
There was separate work at the time (fuel system troubleshooting for a Boeing 757) that was a straight-up heads up display. This had to be a much brighter display because the field tests I ran were done on an airplane in an outside taxi area adjacent to a runway at Renton Field. This system just displayed an app that walked the mechanic through the tests and gathered test results. It had no idea where it was, where the mechanic was looking or where the plane was in space.
Chris
I have the Varia/Heads up attachment, and I think its great. I still use it and when the display is coupled with the Varia, it adds a lot of value to the system.
First time I’ve seen these. The approach is right (just be the UX, not the brains…get data from a phone/watch/head unit), but the execution looks clunky (lack of waterproofing is a particular concern) and the price point is quite high at $400.
I’m guessing that a wave of AR glasses is coming out in the next couple years from Amazon, Apple, Meta, etc. that will be better executed…if you can wait.
I am actually not sure why they label them as AR glasses - but they are 100% HUD at this point.
I hear ya on the price point.
HUD = Head Up Display = What it is
AR = Augmented reality = What it does
I would say AR isn’t entirely appropriate unless the projections interact with the image on which they are overlaid. I think it’s a stretch to say that overlaying simple data on a HUD makes it AR. If that’s the case all HUDs are AR?
Agreed. That being said, I’m used to companies here in the valley using the hot buzzword(s) to market their products even when technically inaccurate (they typically get a pass, unless they are misrepresenting the actual functionality of the product). Companies with simple, heuristic-based algos boasting about their AI, and companies with data sets that would fit on an Excel spreadsheet talking about harnessing “big data.”
Author of the review here. I only posted the review on HN. (Well, and on Reddit but I don’t think anyone saw that.)
Author of the review here. I only posted the review on HN. (Well, and on Reddit but I don’t think anyone saw that.)
Well, Google saw it. 8 of the top 10 results for a search on Engo HUD AR track back to your review. lol
haha, yeah. It’s been weird seeing the traffic spike on a site that’s normally only read by my mother. I’m assuming at some point we’ll see reviews from real people like DC Rainmaker and Velonews.
haha, yeah. It’s been weird seeing the traffic spike on a site that’s normally only read by my mother. I’m assuming at some point we’ll see reviews from real people like DC Rainmaker and Velonews.
“Real people”