When Google Glass emerged on the scene, Business Insider published an article titled “The Verdict Is In: Nobody Likes Google Glass”. The take on Google’s smartglass endeavour was a bit presumptive, but it did have some merit. The article picked on points like terrible battery life, disorientation among users, bad screen, buggy voice control and the fact that it was difficult to use overall. However that article come out in 2013, and we are now in 2017. Google Glass 2.0 has relaunched, but a project called Lucyd backed by 13 exclusive AR patents is beginning to make waves. Lucyd’s mission is to use their disruptive AR tech and team of leading optics experts to solve the major issues afflicting smartglasses. They believe that they have the ability to be the next big thing in AR, and give the people a product that they would actually want to use.
Lucyd Tech is Disruptive to the Core
Lucyd wants to bring to the public smartglasses that work for everyone. Lucyd Lens is being designed on the Ethereum blockchain, to facilitate rapid content development, lightning-fast P2P transactions among Lens wearers, and compensation for community contributions. Lucyd is fighting to solve a number of problems that have plagued AR devices in the past such as: limited field of view, latency issues, light leakage, poor eye tracking, poor controls, geeky appearance, connectivity problems, eye strain and incompatibility with corrective lenses. According to the Lucyd website, there will be no buttons, switches or wires involved, and a microphone will be hidden in the rim of the glasses. The Lens will initially be a peripheral to your smartphone, harnessing it for processing power and data signal—but perhaps one day the Lens will stand alone.
Lucyd Lens is loaded with first-ever features for smartglasses. There will be bone conducting speakers in the stems, and flush LCD microdisplays, so no bulky, protruding lenses. Lucyd Lens can also be outfitted with prescription lenses, and can have its AR interface disengaged in the blink of an eye, for comfortable all-day wear. To address privacy concerns, a front-facing red LED will illuminate whenever photo/video capture is enabled. Lucyd tech was developed over the years of well-funded research at the College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida by a current Lucyd advisor, Dr. Jannick Rolland. Lucyd’s patents will allow them to create a product that is unnoticeable but powerful, and solve major problems associated with currently available AR displays.
A Driven Team of AR Dreamers
It’s not easy to create a product in a space where no successful products exist. It requires hard work, determination and innovative thinking. It also takes the right mix of players to achieve true success. Lucyd has developed what they like to refer to as the ‘Dream Team,’ pun very much intended. The team’s objective is to reach every milestone on their roadmap, and deliver functional, sleek smartglasses to the smartphone-wearing public. The Dream Team’s golden goose is Dr. Jannick Rolland, inventor of Lucyd’s patents and leader of the Lucyd optical system development. Her distinguished work in AR-geared optical engineering is the driving force behind the smartglasses. On the firmware and the operating system side, work has begun on the Logyc OS, which will harness your smartphone’s processing power to act as the motherboard for Lucyd Lens, keeping it light and unencumbering. The app development lead, media lead and graphic designers are working on creating the necessary interfaces, already previewed on Lucyd.co/getLCD. Since the ecosystem will be blockchain based, serious consideration needs to be given to the development of this area and Lucyd has assembled a Blockchain Lead, Media Lead and Cryptocurrency contractors to work on these blockchain based ecosystems.
Seasoned experts are at the helm of Lucyd’s divisions. In addition to Dr. Rolland, the optics team is headed by Dr. Michael Kayat, a physicist and executive with 20 years of experience in development and marketing of advanced optics. The Commercialization Lead is Dr. Clifford Gross, an experienced technology licensing executive, entrepreneur , founder of three public companies and inventor of 19 issued ergonomics patents. The Blockchain Lead for Lucyd is Jose Enrique Hernandez, who comes with extensive experience in information security, cryptocurrency, mining servers and blockchain software.
The Foundation for Blockchain-fueled Growth
The LCD token that is being launched by Lucyd to fund hardware development, also has the potential to be the building block of the AR revolution. The Lucyd Lab AR blockchain will help evolve the AR ecosystem by organically motivating content creation and system improvements with LCD rewards. Third party developers will be creating applications and content for various app stores and also register with Lucyd. A new block would be created for the application and the developers would be able to get tokens proportional to the community impact of their developed app. So on top of traditional app revenue, developers will also get a boost in their earnings by getting LCD tokens. LCD tokens can be “cashed out,” or used to buy AR products from Lucyd and affiliates. In fact, 500 beta pairs of Lucyd Lens are reserved for purchase via LCD by the first crowdfund participants who invest over 2.35 ETH [SD1] (price good until October 31 when presale ends). Lucyd plans to provide developer tools, entertainment apps as well as productivity apps which will be designed natively for their smartglasses. These apps can be purchased with LCD tokens and will help in boosting third party content development, as well as permitting a fluid transition to AR from smartphone. A whitepaper containing details of Lucyd’s project as well as their vision has been released here.
How to acquire LCD Tokens
A total of 100 million LCD tokens are to be created, out of which 50 million are being offered to crowdfund participants during a token sale that Lucyd is holding at lucyd.co/getLCD. A presale is being held between October 17 to October 31, 2017, during which LCD tokens are available at a 40 percent discount. 25 million LCD tokens are available during the presale period. The ICO or the crowdsale will start on October 31, 2017 and end on November 30, 2017. Initial presale price will be 1 ETH = 2,133 LCD, which drops to 1 ETH = 1,280 LCD after the presale. Lucyd is accepting Ethereum (ETH) only for sale of their tokens. LCD can be purchased by sending ETH to the address on Lucyd’s site. The process of acquisition of tokens is explained in detail here.
Creating a Holistic Vision
Augmented reality holds great promise, but no truly pleasing product has entered the mass market. Lucyd has been working on solving the biggest problems in AR, bringing to life a product that can actually let you “dream awake,” which is how Lucyd envisions the potential of their smartglasses. If all goes according to their roadmap, Lucyd will have their first prototype by June 2018. LCD token holders can expect the launch of the beta Lens by first quarter, 2019. The combination of blockchain with AR is an exciting development. It will be interesting to see if blockchain-fueled smartglasses are the foundational, revolutionary product that has been missing from the AR scene. This requires a holistic vision, and it seems Lucyd is ready to bring the AR dream to life.