“This is amazing. Whew. This is better than lookin’ at real life.”
That was how Grammy Award-winning hip hop icon Snoop Dogg described Avegant's Glyph, 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.
The 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.
The Ann Arbor-based Avegant company recently got Snoop Dog to try its Glyph headset. The Glyph has been making its way around the country for tech shows and user demos since its success at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 in January.
The product picked up so much steam that it was able to raise more than twice its Kickstarter campaign goal of $250,000 in just over 48 hours. The Kickstarter was also the most successful of all Kickstarter campaigns worldwide during its 30-day run.
The campaign, which ended on Feb. 21, raised more than $1.5 million with 3,331 financial backers.
“Awe, man. I’m sold on this, man. That’s hard. I mean, the sonic sound is divine and the visual effect: It’s that Glyph, man. Something special for 2014,” Snoop Dogg added.
The developers said that the version being tested right now is a beta version of the product, and improvements will be made to make the product 50 percent smaller and 30 percent lighter.
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.
The Glyph retails for $499 and people who placed orders on Kickstarter are expected to have the device in hand before Christmas 2014.