Just in case someone is working on this type of thing. I will easily pay $1000 for an open source glasses thingy that has a monochrome laser display projecting directly onto my retina. IIRC Bosch and Intel have tried this before and the prototypes never went anywhere so there's probably a really good hardware reason why it's not happening but I want that more than any other hardware, it doesn't even have to be both eyes.

(admittedly with the recent Android news perhaps non-exploitative mobile computing is about to be dead and buried but shit, I'd lug around a backpack module everywhere running linux if it came to that)

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mietek 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Old Microvision Nomad units from around 2004 pop up on eBay from time to time. I have one; it's a monocular red laser retinal projection display, with a permanently attached computing unit running an ancient version of Windows CE. It's bulky, finicky, and nowhere near open source; there's hardly any documentation for it, but it does work somewhat. I haven't done anything interesting with it yet, because it doesn't have a IMU, and integrating one with it has been difficult.

Microsoft Hololens 2 also used Microvision-derived laser retinal projection technology. I don't have one, so I can't say how well it really works, but Microsoft seems to have given up on it as well.

If you relax your requirements and allow for a green holographic waveguide display, there are a few other options, but still nothing open source that I'm aware of.

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Philpax 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apple is rumoured to have tried this and caused eye damage as a result: https://macdailynews.com/2017/04/20/leaked-document-details-...

It's quite difficult to do that safely, as it turns out! I would love a virtual retinal display, but I assume there's a good reason that nobody has managed to ship one in the last two decades.

	▲	mietek 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Microvision Nomad was indeed two decades ago, but Microsoft Hololens 2 also used laser retinal projection.

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zmmmmm 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No display but perhaps you can support these guys and hope they get there:

https://mentra.glass/

	▲	kanwisher 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		they do have a display on the glasses

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numpad0 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Meta's probably losing tons of cash on this one at $799. Realistic retail price for what they're shipping is likely couple times over that. No way they're even fully covering the hardware cost with this price.

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Nevermark 5 days ago | parent [-]

You think its more expensive that Apple Vision Pro? [0]

Estimates for that are around $1500.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/apple-vision-pros-co...

	▲	numpad0 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		yeah, yeah probably. AVP uses less hardcore displays and accompanying optics. Fundamentally they're fancier Apple Watch displays, though it has more by mass. The front-back aligned polarizers for VR pancakes might be a bit complicated, but the lenses itself are rotationally symmetric. This one uses LCoS which will require front illumination combiner prisms, and also the big flat lens thing is probably built using lithography of some kind. I reckon it might not be holographic but something equally exotic like strategically laid out micro wedges suspended in the transparent stuff. The earlier Meta prototype was quoted on media articles as costing over $10k or something and used transparent SiC for lenses, and they said work is ongoing to find a cheaper material. I don't think they meant the lens cost $9.75k and the rest $0.25k by that.