Computing on my face

Thursday February 27th:

My Focals arrived without an accessory kit so I had to borrow someone else's charger for a few hours. The case had three white LEDs inside - one for the glasses, one for the ring/loop and one for the case; that's neat and intuitive.

Activation wasn't very intuitive - having a card or a foldout 'getting started' guide would be nice. Getting the image tuned was fidgety at first, but in the end it resolved well. Soon I had a crisp image in my right eye! 

The laser creates the illusion of a little monitor hovering a few inches from my nose on the right. To perceive the image I 'look at it' in that point of space with both eyes. The 'placement' of that image is strange - not a natural place to read in my field of view; I would never hold my phone or a watch up in that position. I had expected the image to seem farther away and more centred. Nevertheless, I was impressed by the resolution and the different colours - it's a pretty significant engineering feat!

The ring/loop loses its connection to the glasses a lot, which is frustrating. Another person's blog entry (above) suggests that it may not be charging fully; I'll look into that.



Friday February 28th:

I asked Alexa about the weather and was shown a little cloud icon and some text. Alexa's voice also spoke the update. It immediately occurred to me that I would be fine with one or the other - an image OR the spoken update. Then, prompted by the app on my iPhone I asked Alexa "What's happening" and a CBC news update played over the speaker. The image became a set of "play/pause/skip" icons. This seemed a little strange and unnecessary; I could just use the ring to control the playback.

I am already in the habit of using my iPhone hands-free with earbuds. I initiate, dictate and send texts that way, ask for appointment and calendar updates, weather updates and other tasks Siri is capable of. So I'm used to receiving a lot of the information the Focals offer already, just in the spoken form, which I find really convenient. Having a little monitor to the right of my nose doesn't really improve that experience.


I tried using the Focals to get directions, but the ring/loop disconnected again. I'll give that another go soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Experience unboxing and dabbling with the electronics

Opening the box all wrapped up in a package where one might expect a cake of sorts. The little box with a nice note inside leading us to a link was unexpected to say the least. I thought about the relationship between the glasses and the ring. The longer I think about it the stranger it seems. I wore glasses of all sorts, to correct my vision mostly and rings in my culture are tokens (and are mostly made out of gold). It all seemed plastic to the naked eye, plastic glasses and rings. The ring of power that bonds with glasses for my eyes. Two disconnected objects brought together by "design". It was an interesting experience to say the least. Objects that make you want to think about outer pieces of jewellery, maybe bangles that can somehow connect to me to the instrument that measures the moisture in my garden bed. The box itself that holds the spectacle and the ring must be connected to electricity. The experience was not-so-intuitive because I for one looked at my spect...
Read more

Welcome to HUUG

Welcome to the Heads Up User Group! Thank you for attending our Unboxing Launch today, February 27, 2020. Starting today, we welcome you to contribute to this blog on a daily basis about your experiences with the glasses. Each participant will start their own post and continually update this same post throughout the project. Please regularly date your entries within this post. The blog prompts are available to guide your daily reflections but please feel free to write about anything you like, keeping confidentiality in mind. Thank you again for your participation. Please feel free to contact the head researcher and assistants if you have any questions.
Read more