Glyph developers raise more than $258k on opening day of Kickstarter, plan product demo for tonight

Avegant Glyph

Their product mimics the feel of watching an 80-inch, high definition TV screen, except for the fact that you wear it on your head and it looks like a set of headphones.

(Courtesy photo)

The Ann Arbor company responsible for developing the virtual retinal display headset – the Glyph – will host a product demo tonight at Mash Bar on East Washington Street from 5-8 p.m.

The Glyph -- which retails at $499 -- is a wearable headset that uses virtual retinal display technology to project images directly to the eyes of a user, giving the user an experience equal to viewing an 80-inch, high definition TV screen.

Avegant Corp., which started about a year ago, also launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Glyph on Jan. 22 as a way for early backers to buy one of the headsets. In less than 15 hours, the Kickstarter already had 500 backers and more than $258,000 of its $250,000 goal pledged.

“We were not expecting this kind of support this fast,” said Ed Tang, the CEO of Avegant. “This is a fantastic result so far and we’re still pushing really hard for everyone to spread the word.”

The demo will give backers of the technology an opportunity to test the product first-hand. The headset can be hooked up to gaming systems such as the Xbox and Playstation, personal computers and Macs, iOS or Android devices, or an optical media player with the use of an HDMI/MHL input, and has a battery life of about three hours.

Tang said that the product still has a few minor design tweaks that need to be worked out so the product that will get delivered to people will be sleeker and lighter than the beta version.

The product was launched earlier this month at CES 2014 in Las Vegas and received praise from the tech community worldwide.

It was one of the winners of the Reviewed/USA Today Editor’s Choice Award in the mobile division, and was a finalist – along with products from Oculus and Intel – for the Best Emerging Technology by Engadget’s annual Best of CES Awards.

Only 40 of the nearly 250,000 new products were chosen for Editor’s Choice awards at CES.

The $250,000 goal set for the Kickstarter campaign was a figure Tang said would make production feasible.

“We’re in hardware, so to actually build something it costs a lot of money. There’s only a certain point where this becomes cost-effective for us. It doesn’t really justify itself until it hits $250,000,” he said.

“And part of it all is really just understanding the demand. Whether we have 1,000 backers or 10,000 backers, it will determine how we produce.”

The company originally planned for the product demo to take place at its Ann Arbor office, but due to a large registration and an expected turnout of more than 100 people, Tang said the venue was moved to the Mash Bar.

“We’re excited for people to try the product and we’re excited to see that so many people are backing this product so quickly,” Tang added.

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