http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/fff-67
Spotlight: Vuzix, an Enterprise Alternative to Google Glass
Posted 7 hours ago by Alex Spencer
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The Vuzix M100The Vuzix M100Google Glass might be the poster child for wearable devices, but it's not the only smart glasses product hitting the market. At Metaio's InsideAR event in Munich, I had the chance to sample Vuzix's M100 and M2000 devices.
“We have optic technology which goes beyond the microdisplays used in Glass,” says Dan Cui, vice president of business development at Vuzix.
Inside the transparent block which sits above a Glass wearers' right eye, there is a small LCD screen, coupled with a magnifying prism. The size of the display as the user sees it is dependent on the size of this prism. Vuzix says it is working on an 'optical engine' which does away with this LCD panel system, meaning it can scale down the technology required to achieve a larger display.
Trying on the M100 monocular – which resembles nothing more than an overgrown Bluetooth headset – this difference is apparent. After trying Glass a couple of months back, I find myself instinctively looking up and right for the display. Instead, the image sits more centrally in my eye, filling more of the field of vision.
With binocular vision – i.e., an individual display on each eye – apparently on its way, the possible applications for smart glasses open up. Cui says it could eliminate concerns about the safety of driving while using smart glasses, and enables the device to do Augmented Reality overlays. My demo centred around locating and scanning a box in a warehouse, with everything neatly highlighted on the screen.
The importance of being enterprise
It's rarely the technical superiority of a product which decides its success, however. Perhaps the biggest difference between Glass and Vuzix is that it is targeting the enterprise, rather than the consumer. It might sound like a small distinction, but it has an important knock-on effect.
The M2000 is considerably less sleek, but is aimed firmly at workersThe M2000 is considerably less sleek, but is aimed firmly at workers
“The M100 is a platform for development,” says Cui. “We give the customer everything they need to solve a problem, and they just write the code.”
Vuzix is strictly a hardware company, with its devices running a version of Android, meaning that it's down to each customer to decide what they do with the technology. And as an enterprise device, a lot of the privacy concerns surrounding Glass shouldn't affect Vuzix – after all, who's concerned about someone taking surreptitious photos of them in a warehouse.
This could lead to a more flexible device, one that's more free to explore the potential of the smart glasses concept than Google's closed ecosystem will allow, which is good for the health of the wearables market. For Vuzix as a business, it also opens up a handy, lucrative niche:
“Unfortunately, the consumer market still hasn't matured to a point where you could consistently rely on selling these kinds of products,” Cui says. “Google Glass is doing a lot to change that, it's got a lot of press, but the majority of the public still don't know about it. Meanwhile, with enterprise customers, we don't have to beat them over the head to adopt this technology – they already know the ROI.”
If Vuzix was to sell at retail, it would introduce a lot of extra headaches, like margins and distributors, which Google is going to have to face in the coming months. The biggest barrier to entry would probably be price. The company's chunkier M2000 model, set to go on sale before the end of the year, will cost around £6,000 – not something that would go down too well in your local Dixons or Sainsbury's.
Making the jump
“We will sell to consumers, of course, but initially we want to make sure our margins are protected, and that we have growth,” he says. “This is the right choice for the short term.”
Vuzix does seem to have an eye on the long term, too. One of the steps towards the consumer-facing market it's considering is venue-based events like the NFL and Nascar, both of which the company has been in discussions with. Users would be given the devices for the duration, to augment their experience and share with friends.
“It's a way to show the world the benefits of this technology,” says Cui, “rather than just waiting for them to catch up.”
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