Solreader: E-Ink Smart Glasses for Reading
solreader.com
solreader.com
Another company I literally cannot differentiate from pure satire
I will look for another company to do this, just based on what I see here. Unless the reviews show that the product supersedes this presentation.
... Forge meaningful connections. Ignite your creativity. Elevate your perspective. Redefine your limits. Embrace change. Keep exploring, within and without.
See, it's trivially easy to spout meaningless drivel with the aid of a LLM.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/378227457750466574/...
- Interpupillary Distance (IPD) adjustment range of 58 to 72mm
- E Ink 1.3” displays
- 256x256 per eye resolution
- Side-lit with 3000K LEDs
- Circular polarizers and transflective films
The new oculus meta quest 3 could do this and the price difference while nearly double isn't huge if someone really as 350 spare to spend on this.
And the oculus would have headphones, this doens't?
I don't think this kind of resolution is sufficient for VR.
And no, I suck at doing write ups on my projects so I don’t have one lol. But here is the write up someone else did when they saw my post on Reddit. https://www.hackster.io/news/diy-e-reader-incorporates-mecha...
For those who want to see more lens shots, you can scroll to "Product Specs" and click the 2nd tab "Navigation".
A big, AFAIK unstated benefit of this device is the potentially positive impact on the reader's posture. Reading-oriented tasks usually place us in a head forward posture, eventually causing musculoskeletal problems (E.G. "tech neck").
This device frees the user to take nearly any position when reading. So at minimum it avoids contributing to poor posture, but could even be worn while the user is in therapeutic positions that lengthen the spine and stretch the front muscles of the neck and core.
This is the alternative right now: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/best-kindle-accessor...
which is also not great for entirely different reasons
> moving with you when you turn your head
As in, unlike vr it doesn't stay in place- much dumber tech. just Kindle on your face
One note on the screen resolution, the screenshot linked on this thread is from our SDL2 simulator. The actual page feels more like paper, with warm eink artifacts and slight character bleed. No one who puts these glasses on talks about the resolution, instead they all have this huge smile on their face.
There is a per-eye diopter adjustment, ranging from 0 to -5.75, so you have quite a bit of focal adjustment.
> What are the advantages of the Sol Reader over paper books and other e-paper readers?
Not having to hold a book is huge, IMO. I didn't realize it until I started wearing my Sol Reader regularly, but it's basically as much work as watching TV while capturing the words of a book.
Also, the lack of light output means I can read in the middle of the night. There's dark mode and an ambient light sensor for auto-adjusting brightness.
Is it sweat/water resistant?
To add a book you can use a mobile app or text directly since we’re manually buying the books for now. Once we have a book marketplace it’ll be self serve on the mobile apps. We are planning side loading capabilities so you can use the mass storage device, but there’s a bit of preprocessing we’re doing to the epubs that we’ll have to replicate for self serve epubs. To get around that you can email an epub to add@solreader.com and we deliver it directly to your device. Handy!
The lenses that ship with these limited editions will be dust and moisture resistant. But if they drop in a tub all bets are off. That may change one day.
I don't think it's a product for me, but I think there's at least a small market for it.
Absolutely. I read before going to sleep every night. Back in the day, I'd often wake up in the middle of the night with the bedside lamp still on. Now I use a Kindle that turns itself off after a while (I have an iPad too, but iPads hurt when you go to sleep and they bonk you in the face), but it's still not entirely comfortable to use for that purpose.
If the glasses were comfortable enough to not disturb sleep, and durable enough that you didn't have to worry about shattering the eInk display if you rolled over on them, I would definitely be interested.
To that end, maybe a goggles setup with separate lenses, with comfy elastic bands rather than a rigid glasses frame. That might require some ingenuity... I notice the frames are pretty thick, suggesting there's some electronics (or more likely, batteries) inside.
More seriously, looking at the reviews this might be a good product for people with attention disorder? But with the sales page is styling itself like a luxury lifestyle brand, I guess they are targeting rich people with undiagnosed problems tying to self medicate?
Huh?
1. I can't find any information on the website about the company itself, where it is located, or who runs it.
2. The testimonials are described as being from "early Sol Reader customers," but I don't think they've shipped any of these yet, so without anything more specific than "Dave B" or "Maya S" these at least seem fake.
3. The images of the device look like renderings rather than actual images of the hardware.
I would recommend you be a bit more up front about who you are on your website, and also that you try to get more in-depth statements from you early adopters. It seems like you have a good story and people who really love your product, but your website doesn't say that to me.
Just use a normal display and set it to the brightness you like. More even illumination, no flickering when the outside light changes. If you really want to: put a photo sensor or two on the outside, smooth the f* out of them and use that to dim up or down a bit.
Reading by reflected light from an eInk screen is far more comfortable, at least for me.
Couldn't you use a single e-ink screen and project/reflect the results onto areas in front on both eyes?
I'm not sure this will work out , but it is nice you tried.
> Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).
This is like trying to sell me Nokia Symbian with Opera Mobile instead of iPhone 15 to browse web in year 2024.
Apple Vision Hypetrain.
I can sort of understand this format for movies enabling larger than screen interface during flying etc. But not sure whats the point for reading - having something like kinlde seems way more convinient.
Also don't confuse focal distance with real distance. We can potentially have a very close lens focused as if we are looking at an infinite distance.
FPS games are so bad that I have never even considered VR.
All that being said, I don't believe that anything they are doing will create that first-person appearance of movement, so it shouldn't make you feel motion-sick unless you are using it in a car.
lol okay
> Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).