Aryzon, one of the first augmented reality (AR) headsets designed to put the power of AR in the hands of every consumer is nearing a conclusion on its Kickstarter crowdfunging page. The good news for backers is that the project’s original goal of €25,000 has been met four times over, meaning that every Aryzon kit will now ship alongside a head strap. The headset is planned to be shipped to supporters who have pledged €29 or more in September 2017, however, there are 850 units that are currently planned for shipping to Early Bird backers as early as August 2017.
The concept of augmented reality (AR) is growing in popularity and many companies – including Apple – are now attempting to break into this market segment with new AR products oriented towards developers and consumers alike. However, Aryzon is among the first AR headsets designed for the budget market, and the company goes on to describe its product as “the Cardboard of AR”, referring of course to the Google Cardboard virtual reality (VR) headset. Like Cardboard, the Aryzon headset is made from cardboard and relies on a smartphone’s processing power to create and render virtual 3-dimensional objects. But unlike the Google Cardboard which requires users to look directly into the connected smartphone’s display through a couple of lenses, the Aryzon headset uses the smartphone’s display to project augmented reality content onto a transparent screen which acts as the viewfinder. The end result allows users to look through the transparent viewfinder at their actual surroundings, and enrich the environment with augmented reality elements visible only to the eyes of the headset’s wearer.
Unsurprisingly, the Aryzon AR headset is accompanied by a smartphone application compatible with Android OS and iOS, and the Kickstarter page mentions that once the project will meet its funding, the application will be further optimized in order to act as an introduction to the world of augmented reality, suggesting that there still is some work to be done on the software side of things. The company also aims to nurture the development of third party applications for the Aryzon platform and as a result, its SDK (software development kit) has been open sourced. Feel free to refer to the following official video detailing the Aryzon DYI Kit and its capabilities, and check the Kickstarter source link below for the product’s crowdfunding page.