Augmented Reality Finally Gets Its Own Google Cardboard

Isn’t it interesting when you conceptualize a modern design for an improvement in technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality in your head?

If you are a hardware engineer and designer, it’s easy to be inspired to imagine more practical solutions to problems you’d like to see solved. The idea of “evolving” everyday computing to another hardware platform such as eyeglasses or a headset is at the heart of one the most interesting problems to consider: Are people really going to adopt a headset or pair of smartglasses on the level of smartphone adoption based on inherent discomforts that come with wearing a computer on your face?

If you unpack this question a little, it helps to remember that the device most people refer to as “phones” are computers. They have more in common with your laptop than with the analog phone of yesteryear.

Will people wear computers on their heads?

The cultural rejection of Google Glass is a well-worn counterpoint to the belief some hold that headsets could be the next computing platform, if just the right balance can be struck in terms of people’s general discomfort (i.e. LASIK eye surgery instead of corrective glasses) and a complete sea change in the culture’s acceptance of a deflated sense of privacy. (Image courtesy of YouTube.)

The “creepy valley” of Google Glass was that people did not like the feeling of secretly being recorded, or interacting with people whose enthusiasm for technological advances in consumer and professional computing devices transcended obvious concerns for fellow citizens, and they were right not to like your Google Glasses because your “face computer” signals an inherent distrust.

Google Cardboard is a smart idea that combines design and inexpensive materials and leverages the world’s most popular consumer electronics computing device: the smartphone.

So where is Google Cardboard for augmented reality?

Practical next steps for consumer technology whose future is as uncertain as augmented reality are important to developers and early adopters to create new content and refine experiences based on user feedback.

For the headset problem, I remember imagining a set of Beats or Bose headphones whose headband could be converted to a viewing device. I looked around and discovered the Avegant Glyph, which incorporates this exact same design idea. They made it a reality, and it costs $500.

For augmented reality enthusiasts, you must spend anywhere from $500 to $5,000 to get your hands on a headset like the Microsoft HoloLens or ODG R-7 Smartglasses.

A founding member of a group of industrial design students that decided to create a “Google Cardboard” for augmented reality was waiting to receive a Microsoft HoloLens he ordered and grew impatient enough to come up with the idea of making a simple augmented reality headset to test out some ideas for programs.

From a drawing, the seed of the idea grew into an idea for prototypes, which the group began making from cardboard. The lenses were initially glasses, and the combined weight of them with the smartphone was a bit too much for the design group’s liking.

After working with SOLIDWORKS and Adobe Photoshop, the design prototypes slowly began to morph into what is pictured on Aryzon’s Kickstarter campaign.

For $30, you can take a risk on an idea that is practical and relatively inexpensive next to the alternatives for augmented reality like the HoloLens and the ODG R-7 Smartglasses. (Image courtesy of Aryzon.)

This is particularly great if you are interested in or are currently programming an augmented reality app. Designed with Vuforia and Unity, the software was a bit trickier to create for the Kickstarter product, but within 24 hours, Aryzon’s campaign goal of $25,000 was met, and they are still getting ready to move production to their reach goals, if those are reached as well.

This kit is a hit on Kickstarter. (Image courtesy of Aryzon).

Sure, augmented reality for $30 probably won’t blow away the competition, but it gives the average person an option to try it out—and it can at least be used as an interesting visualization tool for 3D models. If you are perhaps interested in developing augmented reality applications, it lowers the cost for anyone who wants to try and develop in any spare time they can cluster together.

Generally, you can’t make decisions on buying an augmented reality headset without seeing it up close and trying it out. I think that is the obvious appeal here—it’s Google Cardboard for augmented reality. If you are into these technologies, then it might be worth a shot just to support a practical innovation like this one from Aryzon.

I will have more details once I receive my review unit. After speaking with founding member Alex Ceha, the group is genuinely excited about having a Kickstarter hit on their hands.