<b>Zhi Dongxi (public number: zhidxcom).</b>
<b>Author | Xu Shan</b>
<b>Edit | Desert Shadow</b>
Put on your glasses and you can see the ancient buildings in front of you, not far away there are slowly rotating blue and white porcelain, and there are "little tour guides" telling their stories of the past. This is not a picture in a science fiction movie, but a corner before entering the prelude to the meta-universe, which is also an AR cultural tourism solution jointly launched by Epson and its partners.
Epson presents ancient architectural models at the Internet Conference
At the just-concluded World Internet Conference, Epson not only launched BT-40 AR glasses, but also brought AR glasses solutions that promote the landing of different industry scenarios.
As the head player in the global projection market, according to Epson's internal data, Epson's smart glasses increased by 193% in the Chinese market in 2019. What are the highlights of Epson's AR glasses solutions? How does Epson view the technology trends behind AR glasses? What other difficulties do AR glasses need to overcome? We discussed the development of AR glasses with Wen Junjie, EPSON AR project manager.
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<b>First</b><b>, more than ten years of cultivation of AR, BT-40 set the latest technology of the masterpiece</b>
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Epson launched its first generation of AR glasses, the Moverio BT-100 glasses, in 2011. Ten years later, Epson brought the fourth generation of BT-40 glasses and the VM-40 optical module.
Among them, the BT-40 glasses use Si-OLED micro-projection technology, which can provide a contrast ratio of 500,000:1, a virtual screen display of 120 inches and a screen resolution of 1080P.
Epson BT-40 AR glasses
I wore this BT-40 AR glasses and tried to connect with a variety of devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops, and found that it had the shortest adaptation time with mobile phones, almost plug and play, while BT-40 glasses had the longest adaptation time with laptops, and occasionally there was an unstable connection.
After connecting with the device, a large virtual screen will appear in front of my eyes, and I will set the horizontal screen of the mobile phone, whether it is reading materials or watching videos, it is very clear, and the color saturation is almost the same as that on the mobile phone.
Behind this is Epson's self-developed VM-40 optical module to improve the display effect of the screen. The module uses optical freeform technology to project the screen on the phone onto two 0.45-inch display areas through self-developed silicon OLED reflective lenses and micro-projection devices.
Wen Junjie mentioned that most of the AR glasses on the market currently use OLED screens, LCOS (silicon-based liquid crystal), Micro LED and optical waveguide display technology to combine the solution. Compared with the high power consumption of LCOS, Micro LED is still unstable in terms of production capacity and power consumption, and OLED screen will occupy a certain advantage in screen delicacy, picture contrast, and process maturity.
OLED screen is not only used in mobile phones, tablets, TVs and other devices, but also gradually applied to AR glasses, VR headsets and other devices. When talking about the shortcomings of olED screens in the application of AR glasses and other consumer electronics, Wen Junjie believes that OLED screens for AR glasses need higher light efficiency utilization to achieve better binocular fusion effects.
<h2><b>Second, to create three major industry programs such as cultural tourism and education, Epson expands AR application scenarios</b></h2>
The landing of products is inseparable from a mature AR industry program, for the pain points of different industries, Epson through the "technology + localization" model and different partners to jointly launch the corresponding AR glasses solutions for cultural tourism, education, industry and other scenarios.
Epson made AR glasses not only become a "little tour guide" in the museum, but also as a "little teaching assistant" in a smart classroom, and even assisted experts in remotely diagnosing machine failures.
<b>1. Cultural tourism program: UWB and GPS combine to punch to achieve centimeter-level accurate positioning</b>
AR glasses created by Epson and its partners provide functions such as browsing routes, information positioning, and model introduction. Not only that, Epson has also achieved centimeter-level precision positioning through UWB and GPS combination technology.
Visitors to the museum wear AR glasses, can see the lifelike "exhibits" in front of them, they can also enlarge the cultural relics to appreciate carefully; tourists in the scenic spot wear AR glasses, you can listen to the explanation of the "little tour guide", step by step to understand the cultural heritage behind the beautiful scenery.
Epson BT-40 glasses are used in AR cultural tourism scenes
Epson will not only take into account the suitability of the scene, equipment comfort, etc. in product research and development, but also provide customers with refined design solutions for some special needs such as loss prevention and disinfection prevention.
<b>2. Smart classroom: one-click splitting model to answer students' questions in real time</b>
In the smart classroom, how to strengthen the interaction between teachers and students has always been the focus of attention in the industry, Epson also gave its own new way of playing, its AR glasses education and training program can support 50 users through gestures, gestures and voice and other real-time interaction.
After putting on the smart glasses, the teachers can use 6DOF technology to disassemble the details of the virtual simulation model for the students to see, and carefully explain the relevant part information.
In addition, after the teacher transmits the data to the platform, the students can more fully understand the structure of each place, and can also see the notes added by the teacher through the AR glasses to deepen their understanding of the content.
Facing different schools, Epson will provide different solutions for specific application scenarios. For example, Epson's BT-40 and Interpretation Technology's smart glasses provide two teaching modes for vocational and technical school teachers, on the one hand, they indicate the corresponding scene through head aiming, and one click to split the model details and mark the key information; on the other hand, the teacher can also show every detail to the students by dragging and dropping the model.
<b>3,</b> <b>smart factory</b><b>:</b> <b>support</b> <b>remote guidance and diagnosis,</b> <b>so that</b> <b>AR glasses become a "fool-level" tool</b>
Now the world is still in the impact of the epidemic, resulting in factory equipment failure, foreign maintenance personnel are difficult to rush to the scene in time to check the equipment. The machines that stop working not only affect the delivery time of the factory, but also cause economic losses to the entire industrial line.
At the conference of AR-related industries, we saw a variety of AR glasses for industrial scenarios, which shows that industrial AR glasses have always been an important area of concern for everyone. Compared with other smart glasses, Epson's AR glasses are clearer on their display.
Epson's BT-35E and VM-40 customized smart glasses can eliminate risks and remote diagnosis through background expert guidance, and frontline workers can repair or transmit according to instructions in time to achieve two-way transmission of information.
Wen Junjie said, "We hope that the smart glasses in the hands of workers are as simple as possible", because this lowers the threshold for workers to use and expands the application scenarios of products.
In addition, Epson has also launched corresponding product solutions related to the medical industry and the personal movie industry. In the future, Epson will also launch more solutions in other areas such as smart cities.
<h2>Third, Epson is optimistic about China's local AR market and creates a soft and hardware integrated ecology</h2>
Epson has always taken "technology + localization" as its core strategic direction, which not only covers its projection, printer and other businesses, but also covers the field of AR glasses.
According to relevant reports, the commercial AR glasses market showed a 3 to 5-fold growth. "We think it will take some time for consumer-grade AR glasses to be used on a large scale, and for now we are focusing on more vertical areas." Wen Junjie said. Therefore, Epson pays more attention to the cooperation of companies that not only have professional technical capabilities, but also understand the needs and pain points of the industry and can promote the overall landing of the program, just like Film Technology, Interpretation Technology and other companies.
Epson has partnered with dozens of companies around the world and is also looking for more hardware vendors to join.
<h2><b>Conclusion: Molds form an important part of AR glasses</b></h2>
In the exchange with Wen Junjie, EPSON AR project manager, we can feel that Epson has always adhered to its own product innovation in the AR industry. In addition, Epson has also worked with Chinese companies in the fields of culture, tourism, education and industry to create a practical AR landing plan.
With the boom of the meta-universe, the current AR market is showing a good trend in financing, and large manufacturers have also begun to enter the market to promote the development of the industry, and we can see that players with modules as their core competitiveness are gradually emerging in the AR ecosystem.
At present, AR glasses have higher and higher requirements for display in terms of clarity, light transmittance and low power consumption, and the development of modules has attracted more and more attention.
For a pair of ordinary glasses, a good pair of lenses is crucial, and the same is true for AR glasses. Epson will use its years of technology accumulation to provide a pair of optical module "lenses" suitable for multiple scenes.