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Make your own Augmented Reality glasses for under 20 Euros

Make your own Augmented Reality glasses for under 20 Euros

The world’s first freeware AR website, OpenAR, has introduced DIY AR hardware that users can make for under 20 Euros.

The independently-operating DIY OpenAR glasses can show the user temperature, compass directions, or the distance to an object, for example. In the future, the OpenAR glasses can also be paired to a smartphone via Bluetooth. More apps will become available when new users around the world have the opportunity to develop the concept.

The OpenAR concept was published at the SPIE AR|VR|MR Photonics West conference side event in San Francisco last week.

Professor Jyrki Saarinen from the Institute of Photonics at the University of Eastern Finland said, “AR glasses will replace smartphones as an interface for using the Internet… However, their entry into the market is slowed down by a typical challenge: without AR glasses, there are no app developers and without app developers, there is no market for AR glasses”.

Open AR's aim is, “To speed up the development of AR technology… to design affordable AR glasses that are accessible to everyone”. With that in mind, Laboratory technician Tommi Itkonen explained further that, “Anyone can download the instructions on how to build the OpenAR glasses from our website, order the supplies from an online store, for example, and print the mechanical parts with a 3D printer”.

The website for the OpenAR glasses has been created as part of the HUMan Optimized xR (HUMOR) project funded by Business Finland and the PREIN Flagship on Photonics Research funded by the Academy of Finland

The development of the OpenAR glasses will continue, and the concept will be extended to software development. To this end, a new non-profit organisation, Open Source Community for Augmented Reality, has been founded.


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