The Avegant Glyph

What is this some kind of headphones?

Just kidding! it it's some sort of headset or vr goggles or. something

My friend found this at goodwill for $10. It's from 2015ish and it got a lot more than $10 in grant money to develop the thing. It's kind of hard to sum up exactly what it is so I'm gona list every claim or specification I can find, followed by my take or explanation of it

"It's not VR"

All it rlly has for i/o is a micro-HDMI and micro-USB port. There's no controllers, and it supports any video stream over hdmi as long as it's 720p or lower

"Screenless Display"

Instead it "projects images directly to the eyes." ok what constitutes as a screen? like isn't that what a screen also does?
The technology is kinda cool though, instead of blocking light like an lcd or adding more lights like an led panel, it uses a very tiny array of posable mirrors that move to bend certain wavelengths of light toward your eyes, using a single light source
At the very least it's a way to get a very high definition display onto a tiny device in 2015

"No eyestrain"

LMAO. We just got over how it beams light directly into your retinas. About the length of a movie is my max, as my eyes start to throb afterward
Most of my experience is during the night though, it could be less damaging if I were to use it in a brighter environment

"Like looking at a movie screen"

or "like a 50in TV from 7 feet back" or any other screen comparisons.
It looks like a really high def tiny screen right in front of your face just as much as it looks like a theatre screen from 70 feet away. Don't expect to be too immersed

"Adjustable"

The lenses adjust so far that you can focus it in even if you regularly need to wear glasses. I'm used to having to keep glasses on in things so this is a nice adaptation
The lenses are unfortunately a little small though, or the device can't get close enough to my face, as the edges always have a bit of a vignette, and are sometimes out of focus due to the lenses being kinda loosely secured

"Doubles as headphones"

They do flip up and you can use them as headphones. That's why they look simultaneously low-key and odd in headset mode. They have 50mm drivers too and the sound is actually rlly good
They do support bluetooth, though you need the avegant app to be able to use it at all (which has since been removed from the app store) so I've only been able to test them out in the passive aux cable mode
I don't think you would want to use them like this anyway, as they stick up rather far above your head, and dig into your skull pretty good unless you add some padding

One other thing to note

about that is that these are decently heavy. In video mode they will sag on your ears a little, which has the potential to be annoying

To "solve" this they included a detatchable headstrap. idk why the headstrap isn't just permanently part of it that rotates to stay upright when you flip the video portion down? kinda seems like an afterthought

"Supports 3D"

Since it does have two lenses it can send a different video feed to each. I was unable to test native 3D over hdmi as all the ps4 games I own are lame, though it supports side-by-side formatted 3D like a google cardboard
There's not a ton of good 3D content out there, at least that I know of, but it's still neat that the feature's here

"Full head tracking"

Probably my favorite part. If you plug in the usb cable to something it'll just act as a mouse input. So it technically supports anything that's controlled by a mouse. This includes Minecraft, DOOM, and solitaire
The only jank I found is that it has a sorta auto-centering? So if you look up, it will try to bring your mouse back down to where it was, but not for left and right movement. This is really annoying for 3d games, and not mentioned anywhere in the manual. I've found that the best way to disable it is, get this, move your head around really far and fast to max out the sensors and then the auto centering will just stop working

"Connects to your smartphone"

This is more of a cool feature that my galaxy has rather than unique to the glyph but if you get an HDMI to usb-c you it will actually open up a desktop environment that's seperate from the phone screen. So you can type on discord while getting family guy funny moments beamed directly into your eyes

At the very least it makes for a cool periscope or way to take selfies, as you can get a live feed from the camera in the corner of your eye while doing something else

"Spatial awareness"

Since they're only about as wide as a headphone band, there's a large area under the viewpiece that's just open up to your surroundings. So you can still type and walk around and such while wearing these

"Personal home theatre"

I've seen this before. Sony tried it with their "personal home stereo" PFR-V1 headphones. Offering the experience of a home system if you don't have the space or money or allowable volume or you're just not home at the moment
They did pretty good though. There's definitely weird shortcomings like the eyepieces vignetting and the seperate headstrap but the technology inside is really cool
But I can see why it didn't catch on. This was the era of the segway. Innovative products that didn't rlly fit anyone's needs
It doesn't rlly fit any of my needs either but it's chock full of gimmicks and is very fun to play around with

"Better than looking at real life"

so says Snoop Dogg