Epson’s New Moverio BT-200 – A Cheaper Glass Alternative

Back in 2013 when Glass was initially announced and the whole wearable computer industry started to boom, Epson already had on market a pair of glasses similar to Google Glass, except that the Moverio BT-100 had a different purpose. Epson’s device was built for entertaining masses and not the technological engineers or enthusiasts. But considering that now the wearable fever is higher than ever, the company decided to follow the flow and improve their original model.

So, the new headset model, Moverio BT-200 only weighs 40 percent of the original model, but frankly we wouldn’t advice you to go out wearing it. With a heavy design, thick lenses and big frames, all of them attached to a big touchpad by a thick wire… Not a way to be remembered by, trust us.

As we were telling you in the beginning, Moverio wasn’t build to go out and socialize while wearing it, it’s more for home entertainment and playing games when you’re alone, so fashion and looks should be the last things bothering you. Being designed for this purpose, BT-200 delivers a full Android experience and packs a transparent screen able to hover nearly four feet away from you. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a notification device that will stay out of your sight until calling it, Glass is the device for you.

The gaming experience you can have while wearing the device could go as an Oculus Rift experience, as apps can use the tracking accelerometer to know the position of the head (looking left, right, up). This means that if you’re playing a game and looking up, you will also be looking up in the game. Also, in order to create those awesome 3D effects, Epson’s device comes with a VGA-quality camera for AR apps. You might have seen something similar in LEGO’s 3D environments.

Another appreciated feature of the BT- 200 are the lenses themselves. Built with the same technology as Google Glass, the stereoscopic lenses can deliver a 3D display by beaming images from the tiny two projectors. Thanks to the fact that the lenses are placed at 45-degree angle to the user’s eye, he will get a floating interface for both his eyes, with the display placed in the center front of your viewing angle.

In this point, Epson is counting on outside developers to create apps and games for their device. The apps available now are general and don’t seem to test the device at its full potential. Considering that Moverio-200 has all the potential for a great gaming instrument, Epson believes that these qualities will attract developers to create more and more apps for the AR glasses.

Until then, we consider the BT-200 to be a great device, a neat gaming instrument and considering that it’s cheaper than Glass (only $700) we believe it will also be pretty successful. Another thing you should know is that Epson is going to start shipping it on April 1st.