Snowboard Goggle HUD Displays Critical Data While Falling Down A Mountain

April 5, 2013 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

snowboard-google-hud

[Chris] has been hard at work building a Heads Up Display into some Snowboarding goggles. We’re used to seeing the components that went into the project, but the application is unexpected. His own warning that the display is too close to your face and could cause injury if you were to fall highlights the impractical nature of the build. But hey, you’ve got to start somewhere when it comes to prototyping. Perhaps the next iteration will be something safe to use.

A set of MyVu glasses were added to the top portion of the goggles, which lets the wearer view the LCD output by looking slightly up. The display is fed by a Raspberry Pi board which connects to a GPS module, all of which is powered by a USB backup battery. In the video after the break you can see that the display shows time of day, speed, altitude, and temperature (although he hasn’t got a temperature sensor hooked up just yet). His bill of materials puts the project cost at about £160 which is just less that $250.

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Steampunk Theremin Goggles

April 4, 2013 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 11 Comments

wearable-theremin-goggles

Lots of people build custom steampunk goggles, but most don’t implement any interactivity – they’re just an aesthetic accessory. [Sarah] recently decided to built a pair that, besides looking cool, would engage the wearer in creating sound. She accomplished this by integrating an optical theremin into their design.

To keep the build both affordable and wearable she researched simplified theremins, and eventually settled on creating a basic model that uses only a handful of components and two 555 timers. The main body of the goggles was constructed using mostly random mismatched pieces of metal and leather. Mounted on the outer edge of each lens, there is a photo sensor and a corresponding slider control. Adjusting the slider alters the level of resistance, therein changing the pitch of the sound. The theremin will produce different pitches and octaves depending on how much light the sensors receive. So, the wearer, or a nearby friend, waves their hands around the wearers head to control it.

The speaker and volume knob are cleverly disguised as the two ‘lenses’. Rotating the volume knob lens adjusts an internal potentiometer that’s held in place by a custom laser etched piece of acrylic. To top it all off, she even designed her own PCB using Eagle.

Check out a video demonstration after the break.

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Your Own Head-mounted Display For Under Two Bills

February 14, 2013 by Mike Szczys 39 Comments

CIMG1078

[D S] wanted his own head-mounted display. What you see here is just his mockup, but somewhere along the way he realized it’s closer to a finished build than just being a stating point. Not only does it work well for gaming, it came in at under $200 all in. You think your girlfriend makes fun of you now for wearing that big microphone headset while playing? Just wait until she gets a load of these!

We’ve embedded an image gallery after the break as well as the description he sent us with his email. The display itself is a 7″ LCD module from eBay that boasts a hair better than 720P resolution: 1280×800. He’s using a pair of ski goggles to strap the display to his noggin. The enclosure is made out of foam board which should help keep the weight down. Inside there’s a Fresnel lens but after reading his description of how he measured the focal length we’re still not 100% clear on how he figured out where to mount it.

Though it may be missing the 3d of the rift,a quick mod could fix that and he’ll be well on his way through the journey to building his own Holodeck.

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LED Goggles Make You Trip Out?

August 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

Who knows if this works and should you really want to try to induce hallucinations by flashing colors in front of your eyes? But we do love the zaniness of the project. [Everett’s] homemade hallucination goggles come in two flavors, the small swimming-goggle-type model and the heavy-duty trip visor made from welder’s goggles. Each brings together the same components; a half ping-pong ball for each eye to diffuse the light from an RGB LED. The system is controlled by an Arduino with some buttons and 7-segment displays for a user interface. Put this together with some homemade EL wire and you’re ready for Burning Man.

[Thanks Evan]

Pikachu Circuit Bent Goggles

June 2, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 40 Comments

pikachu_goggle1 (Custom)

These nifty looking goggles are actually an instrument. The guts of a pikachu doll have been splayed and mounted to the goggles. The controller is an external box that allows you to make all kinds of changes to the pitch and sample section. You can see a video of it after the break. We don’t really find this to be great music, but find watching the guy fairly amusing.

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Consumer HMD Comparison

June 7, 2008 by Eliot 28 Comments

We’ve wanted headed mounted display technology to take hold for a long time. Gizmodo recently compared two consumer models: the Zeiss Cinemizer ($400) and the Myvu Crystal ($300). Unfortunately the resolution of HMDs has gone nowhere in the last 10 years. These two devices only support 640×480 and are aimed specifically at iPod users. With computers getting smaller and higher resolution, we’re surprised that HMDs have not followed suit. Why isn’t someone going to market with a 1280×720 headset? If you really must choose one of these two, we’d recommend the Myvu. It has composite input so you can hook almost anything up to it.