Snowboard Goggle HUD Displays Critical Data While Falling Down A Mountain

April 5, 2013 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

snowboard-google-hud

[Chris] has been hard at work building a Heads Up Display into some Snowboarding goggles. We’re used to seeing the components that went into the project, but the application is unexpected. His own warning that the display is too close to your face and could cause injury if you were to fall highlights the impractical nature of the build. But hey, you’ve got to start somewhere when it comes to prototyping. Perhaps the next iteration will be something safe to use.

A set of MyVu glasses were added to the top portion of the goggles, which lets the wearer view the LCD output by looking slightly up. The display is fed by a Raspberry Pi board which connects to a GPS module, all of which is powered by a USB backup battery. In the video after the break you can see that the display shows time of day, speed, altitude, and temperature (although he hasn’t got a temperature sensor hooked up just yet). His bill of materials puts the project cost at about £160 which is just less that $250.

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Pulling The LCD Screens Out Of A MyVu Glasses Display

December 24, 2012 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

myvu-led-module-teardown

[John Floren] really sells us on a pair of MyVu 301 Video Glasses. He lists the features as being bulky, ugly, and uncomfortable. That’s the reason why he’s showing you how to crack open the glasses in order to steal the tiny LCD modules.

The LCD screen for each eye is mounted inside of the assembly seen above. The screen is perpendicular to the wearer’s eye, with some space in the body to facilitate the lens and reflector that enlarge the image and direct it toward the eye. After removing the display from the module [John] tried to hook it up to a camera via the driver hardware which comes with the glasses. It must have been a bit of a head scratcher that all he could get was a plain white image. This is fixed by finding the polarizing filter inside the module and laying it over the screen. This is demonstrated in the clip after the break.

We don’t know where he’s planning to go from here, but we can suggest a few different projects. This hardware could be useful in creating his own augmented reality hat. Using it as a video game controller is another thing that pops to mind. Wouldn’t it be cool to have this in the scope sight of a light gun?

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Motorcycle Rear-view With In-helmet Display

September 20, 2010 by Mike Szczys 44 Comments

Want to see what’s behind you when riding your sport bike without taking your eyes off the road? They make rear view cameras for that but [Nescioqd] wanted a rear display right in his helmet (PDF). He started by mounting a rear-pointing camera on the back of the bike, powered from the 12V feed for the taillight. On the display side of things he picked up a Myvu Crystal wearable display. This is like a pair of glasses that have small LCD screens were the lenses should be. [Nescioqd] removed one lens and mounted it inside the helmet.

Since the display resides inside the helmet there is some concern about being able to see at night with a bright screen below your eyeball. [Nescioqd] actually ran into the opposite problem at first, bright sunlight makes it difficult to see the image on the LCD screen. He fixed this by picking up a dark tinted helmet visor (the easiest solution) but we’d love to see a photoresistor used to regulate the backlight level.

It would be interesting to see both screens used, with rear-view on one side and an instrument display on the other.

Elegant Wearable Computer

July 30, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 50 Comments

[Jason Statham] [Martin Magnusson] wrote in to tell us about his adventure in building a wearable computer. The device in its current state is a Beagleboard running Angstrom Linux tethered to an iPhone for internet. A bluetooth keyboard allows for input, while output is displayed on monocle-ized Myvu. And last but not least, the entire setup is powered by 4 AA batteries for 3 hours of life.

Its not as small as some of the wearable computers we’ve seen before, but if you wanted to whip out your own it sure takes a lot less soldering.

Hacking The Myvu Personal Video Player

August 19, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 17 Comments

[jongscx] picked up a Myvu personal media viewer and promptly began scheming about improvements. He decided he wanted to be able to watch any input on the device, not just an Ipod.

After some messing about with different inputs, he eventually calls Myvu to ask some questions. Surprisingly, he gets the engineer who designed the thing. The engineer turns out to be pretty helpful and is happy to help him hack the device. [jongscx] ends up finally getting it to work and posts the schematic for the world to see.

He says his hands are full with some other projects right now, but hopefully he’ll do an official write up with pictures of the final product soon.

[DrNathan] wrote in to note that [RetroPlayer] was responsible for much of the work as well as contacting the engineer.

[thanks, DrNathan]