I’ve wanted a head mounted display (HMD) for a long time. I’ve seen them in movies and I’ve seen tons of work with wearable computing (and would like to build something, myself), so I was absolutely thrilled to find the Vuzix iWear AV310 in my mailbox just waiting to be reviewed.

Look, feel, and function
The first challenge, I imagine, in creating a good head mounted display system is in building something that doesn’t look to nerdy, isn’t too bulky, and fits comfortably on your face. Vuzix has gotten pretty close on all three, which is about what I expect from a consumer product, even a high end one. The bulk is the real hurdle. They’re essentially cramming two TV screens in to something smaller than most remotes. The fact that it’s so small lends to how comfortable it is to wear, of course. The AV310 is pretty light, so it sits there on your face, hardly noticeable. That is to say, hardly noticeable by the person wearing it. To the rest of the world, it jumps out and says “cyborg”. “Cyborg” is a couple steps up from “geek”, and the AV310 looks at least cool enough to surpass just “geeky”. It’s pretty decently designed, actually. It’s just dark and curvy enough to make people wonder about it and where to get one. The nose piece is pretty rigid and is designed to keep everything in place, perhaps at the expense of some comfort. I adjusted it to be the most comfortable and eventually got used to it enough that I forgot about it while watching YouTube videos on my iPhone.

(Click here to view all the photos)

I loved that it comes with the iPhone/iPod connector. Better still, this connector is equipped with a mini USB power port for keeping your iPhone full of juice. That’s smart thinking, but almost an obvious need if I’m going to drain my iPhone’s battery by watching a movie on it. Of course, it also comes with a standard RCA cable for connecting to just about any home theater or gaming system. What I would have loved to also see would be another connector for my computer, but two out of three is pretty good.

Visual performance and interface
All that stuff above about how it looks and feels doesn’t mean a lot if the picture quality were to suffer for some reason. Gladly, that wasn’t the case here. The video wasn’t as crisp as my HD TV, but it was really good. It did seem a little bit washed out on darker videos like the trailer for 2012, but everything else looked great. And for those darker movies, the settings come in handy. In between the AV310 and whatever you’ve plugged it into is a small remote on the video cable. The remote lets you turn it on and off, but it also gets you into the settings with a tap of the power button. Using the power button you can move down the list of settings such as contrast, hue, saturation, and aspect ratio. A couple of additional physical controls exist, too. Under each eye is its individual focus. With a little patience, I was able to focus each eye for a perfect picture.

Something that became a good thing during some use, but otherwise a bit annoying was the gap between my face and the AV310. Through this gap, I could see my laptop, Rubik’s Cube, or other visual noise. When I was watching an instructional video on solving a Rubik’s cube, that was a good thing. When I was watching a movie, it was a little distracting. It wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying my movie, but it was noticed. Fortunately, they have an eyeshield that you can attach to (seemingly) completely solve the gap issue. It goes for $14.95, but I think it’s worth it. It’s hard to really describe the experience, so I made this quick video to help give you an idea of what it was like to use the iWear AV310 video eyewear to watch an episode of Gadget Pron from G4TV.

How I used it
When I first tried the iWear AV310 with my iPhone, I thought it didn’t work. When I plugged it into the iPhone, I found myself looking at a message telling me that my device wasn’t made to work with the iPhone. I ignored it and eventually was happily watching video from my iPhone through the AV310. It worked great with a podcast and YouTube videos as well as videos I recorded on the phone. Next, I plugged it into my XBox. My wife loves her SyFy channel shows, so it was nice to be able to enjoy some gaming without taking over the big screen or making lots of noise. Finally, I hooked it back up to the iPhone and found a video on YouTube about how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. With the iWear AV310, I was able to see both the video and my Rubki’s Cube, but more importantly, I was mobile while keeping my hands free for other things or just being able to lay down without holding my iPhone up in the air to watch something.

Conclusions
Not all of the luster of owning a HMD wears off. After having it for a while, it’s still pretty cool to use and practical in some cases as well. The $250 price tag isn’t too bad for all it offers. It may scare off the casual gadget buyer or those who just want to buy it because it’s a really cool gadget to have, but those who have more practical uses for the AV310 have no reason not to buy one.

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