Student Choice

Focals by North

Suhan Surendra Nath

Introduction

Focals by North is an Augmented Reality enabled eyewear that is designed to look like a common pair of eyeglasses. Focals comes with a tiny embedded projector which projects notifications and other information within the Focals display area. It also comes with a ring-shaped joystick called the ‘Loop’ that allows the user to navigate the user interface. Focals also has Alexa built-in and listens to voice commands from the user with the provided mic. Focals have integrated some of the most popular applications (both iOS/Android) in their Heads-Up Display like Facebook messenger, Whatsapp, Slack, Uber, Spotify and Google Now to name a few.

1. Full Color Retina Projection

Focals boasts of a colorful, sharp and transparent display. The notifications appear on demand and are perceived floating at an arm’s length. These have a resolution of 300 by 300 pixels and a field of view of 15 degrees. The technology behind this is laser beam scanning (LBS) which is used to generate low-resolution image with a holographic film to redirect back the light towards the eye. North in late 2018 acquired patents of Intel’s AR glass project called the Vaunt. Initially Intel’s team had problems with limited range of focus corrections and no astigmatism/bi-focal support. But North have come up with a solution for this and offer the eyewear with prescription glasses. Intel’s vaunt also faced an issue called tiny eye box issue wherein the field of view is extremely small and if the laser doesn’t reflect directly towards the retina, no image is seen at all. But North have overcome this by increasing the FOV to 15 degrees. Other factors which North had to overcome where controlling brightness of a beam, casting shadows on the retina, low resolution and low frame rate.

Images from [6]

2. Loop Controller

North decided to go with a ring-shaped four directional joystick to enable the user to navigate its user interface and not the gesture-based system of the Google glass. Left-Right toggle allows the users to select through different apps and experiences and Up-Down toggle lets the user navigate between different notifications of the selected app. It is made of premium plastic material and gives the user excellent feedback with a soft chime on press. A press of the button on the loop wakes up the glass and then tries to pair with either Android or iOS devices over Bluetooth.

3. Applications and Companion App

Focals have integration of some of the most popular applications. Even though it does not display the application as a whole in the display, North has created an elegant and minimalist user interface to display the notifications from these apps. Focals does not run the apps on the wearable instead it uses Bluetooth or Wifi to talk the phone that it is paired to. Here are the list of notification the device is compatible with.

I. Calender and Task Management

II. Slack Notifications

III. Gmail notifications

IV. Facebook, Whatsapp messeaging

V. Places of Interest Discovery

VI. Weather Tracking

VII. Uber Hailing and Tracking

VIII. Turn by Turn Navigation

IX. Spotify Music Control

All GIFs from [1]

North says integrating more apps are in the works. Complimenting the wearable device is a companion app which lets the user to customize the user interface in the HUD. The app displays the batter percentage of both the eyeglass and the loop. It also helps in setting up your Home and Work address, Amazon Alexa and Uber. You can also control the level of permission that the wearable can access on your device. There is also a feature of sharing screenshots of what you see on the Focals on social media apps. It allows the user to customize settings for Loop clicks, measurement unit (Metric or Imperial) and Automatic driving detection. It also constantly checks for software updates.

4. Custom Design and Look

Focals can only be bought at an exclusive North store. A 3D scan of the customers head is taken at one of these outlets to get the perfect fit. The customer can also choose between 100 different color tones and accents for their custom Focals eyeglasses.

5. Other Accessories

Focals come with a protective case that also acts as a charger for both the eyeglass and the loop.

Conclusion

North has implemented an AR enabled eyewear which does not stand out in the crowd. The customers of Focals will certainly not have the “GlassHole Syndrome”[2] which the users of Google glass were subjected to. The other important aspect that factors to this is the notable emission of the camera when compared to its predecessors. Both Google glass and SnapGlass by Snap Inc have cameras in their eyewear, and this has caused a backlash against such devices among the public[9]. North has also come up with a very intuitive solution for navigating their user interface. The user does not have to keep touching or gesturing in front the eyewear to navigate. But the question of comfort of wearing a bulky ring with a joystick arises. North is also pushing to adding more application integration every week. The integration of Alexa with message dictation has received rave reviews and according to tech reviewers[7], the voice recognition works almost seamlessly even in a noisy environment. One of the major drawbacks of this product is the price at which it is being sold. North says the standard package costs $600, but if you need precise fitting, anti-glare coating and a prescription glass the whole package comes out to around $1000. Overall, Focals by north has set a very high standard for AR enabled smart glasses and the following iterations that are in the works should see the product improve drastically. If North manages to get the price point right this would pave way to a massive smart glasses market and disrupt the Augmented Reality technology as we know it.

Reviews from The Verge, TechCrunch, Tech Insider

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