Comparing the latest in HMD wearable technology

This year has seen an explosion in wearable technology. There is an abundance of health monitoring watches and sensors, clothes that move when looked at, and of course a profusion of smart glasses lining up to compete with Google Glass. The Head Mounted Display (HMD) marketplace is certainly a hot one, and we’re seeing a variety of different approaches from simple displays and video-only glasses, to augmented reality and full immersion virtual reality headsets.

Here is a comparison of some of the more prominent HMD players at the moment:

Google Glass

Style: futuristic
Camera enabled: yes
Connection: android
Display: single eye, over right
Input method: touch, voice recognition, blink
What it does: view information from smart phone
Price: $1,500 for Explorers and rumored to be as low as $299 when released later this year
Availability: Sometime in 2014,  

GlassUp

Style: Simple/Sporty
Camera enabled: no
Connection: smartphone
Display: center right
Input method: touch
What is does: display information from smartphone
Price: $399
Availability: order on their website glassup.com

Meta 0.1

Style: futuristic
Camera enabled: no
Connection: computer and phone in the future
Display: fully immersive
Input method: gestures and finger tracking
What it does: augmented reality
Price: $667 for meta.01
Availability: preorder at their website spaceglasses.com

Recon Jet

Style: sporty
Camera enabled: yes
Connection: smartphone and third party sensors via Bluetooth, Ant+ and Wifi
Display: Single Eye, under right
Input method: touch
What is does: uses GPS to display speed, elevation, distance, heartrate
Price: $599
Availability: limited quantity available now on their website

Telepathy One

Style: futuristic
Camera enabled: yes
Connection: smartphone via Bluetooth
Input method: n/a
What it does: display data from smartphone
Price: not released yet
Availability: release date estimated in 2013, website

Oculus Rift

Style: full immersion virtual reality
Camera enabled: no
Connection: HDMI or DVI to computer, USB
Input method: mouse
What it does: virtual reality for gaming
Price: $300 for Developer kit
Availability: Developer units shipped Spring 2013. Commercial version in 2014. More on their website oculusvr.com

Did you happen to notice the current input methods of all of these HMDs? As of now, touch, voice recognition, and gestures are the primary controls for these systems, but no one has yet accomplished eye tracking. With a display so near your face, eye tracking seems the obvious method of input, and I’m predicting it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out how to make it happen.

One thing is clear: wearable technology is the future, it’s just a matter of the technology reaching a point where it’s completely intuitive to use and people get over the “geek factor” that these early stage glasses exude. So tell us, would you wear one of these HMDs? When do you predict they will have eye tracking?