May 19, 2003 - Visor Village
MicroOptical Demos Bluetooth Eyewear Viewers

MicroOptical Monday unveiled its first eyewear viewers with Bluetooth wireless technology.

The DV-1 Digital Viewer, which features a 12-bit qVGA color display, shows images from compatible PDAs and PCs via the short-range Bluetooth technology. It will be available to application providers and systems integrators in mid-June as a developer's kit.

The developer's kit includes a protocol for transmitting images over a Bluetooth serial link. A driver is used in the transmitting device to send the serialized image to the DV-1 viewer, which in turn receives the output signal from the Bluetooth-enabled device and projects images through the optical system. MicroOptical said that the battery-powered, monocular viewer, which clips on to either side of eyeglasses, gives the user the impression of a free-floating monitor.

Also on Monday, MicroOptical released its Binocular Viewer OEM Evaluation Kit. The viewer features see-around optics with embedded opaque mirrors, giving users the impression of a color monitor floating a few feet in front of them.

The company is offering several versions of the $4,000 kit, including a stereo version capable of 3-D demonstrations