Everyone in Silicon Valley seems to be dreaming the same dream: AR glasses. Meta has its prototype Orion glasses. Apple is reportedly developing its own variety of smart glasses in its Cupertino spaceship headquarters. While a few smaller companies are trying to drive the market, DIYers have largely been kept out of the loop. However, one indie designer seems to have cracked the code, creating what may be one of the most unique and potentially practical pairs of AR wearables we’ve seen yet. Even better, he’s planning to sell dev kits for a second-gen version so people can build their own pair at home.
“Zero” is an all-in-one pair of AR glasses powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero. It runs web apps natively and doesn’t require any extra processing puck or external battery. Miroslav Kotalík, a developer and DIYer, told Gizmodo via direct message that he first got the idea for his Zero glasses while he was working for a company developing a commercial pair of AR spectacles. Put plainly, he wasn’t satisfied with how most AR glasses makers keep making devices that don’t actually feel comfortable to wear.
“I didn’t like the weight distribution, they didn’t sit right on my face and needed a phone over a wired connection to function,” he said. “That’s where I got the idea to make my own.”
Like many AR glasses, Zero promises to provide a kind of “minimap” while walking around or offer immediate translation while traveling, though the current pair is still an early prototype. Kotalík started testing out a device using Arduino hardware, but he realized he needed something powerful enough to render webpages and execute Javascript, leading him to settle on a Raspberry Pi Zero. The final design of 1.0 takes a good deal of inspiration from retro-futurism, with goggle-like frames. The rounded lenses also allow Kotalík to position optics near the hinges, rather than crowding them near the top as with typical square-shaped AR glasses.
In videos Kotalík posted to Twitter, the AR apps appear as subtly shifting, floating icons or numbers, evoking the floating numbers seen in front of scientists’ eyes in the Netflix rendition of The 3 Body Problem. As for app compatibility, Kotalík explained that the current operating system is built to interface with any kind of web app. It doesn’t require an internet connection and should work with any app designed for offline use.
“This means you can create an AR app in minutes—just make a simple webpage and copy it into the right folder,” he said. “The OS handles sensors, head tracking, and ‘glance’ element selection for you.”
Although it’s still an early concept, the most remarkable aspect of this DIY design is how Kotalík managed to craft a pair of optics at home. Like many modern waveguide-based designs, these DIY glasses use a projector system to display images on the lenses, but that hardly conveys the challenge of creating such intricate optics by hand. Kotalík used a free online tool called Ray Optics Simulation to fine-tune the lens shape needed for image projection.
Initially, he tried 3D-printing a transparent PETG lens, but the result had air bubble lines trapped in the print, causing diffraction in the images. After extensive trial and error, he switched to transparent resin, which he poured into 3D-printed molds. He then hand-polished and sanded the lenses into the correct shape.
While the 1.0 version was just a prototype, it demonstrated you could get a functional pair of glasses for relatively cheap without resorting to massive battery packs or bulky processors. Kotalík said his work on the 2.0 version is focused on making it a real competitor to larger companies.
Not only is he experimenting with better optics, the new version could feature a larger field of view, a battery for a total 2-hour runtime, a better projector lens, plus the capabilities from a hand-tracking camera and microphone. Essentially, it could become a kind of AI wearable in the same vein as the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. He’s still testing whether 2.0 should use an Organge Pi Zero 2w or a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.
Kotalík mentioned that version 2.0 will focus on frequently used web apps, like Spotify or Instagram. The OS should be able to leverage the camera and 6DoF tracking, similar to what’s available on larger headsets, though that’s still in development. There’s significant promise in these simple, affordable glasses, though Kotalík noted that version 2.0 will “need a bit more time.” Pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it may range between $250 and $450. He told Gizmodo that these 2.0 glasses will be the first ones available to the public, and he’s set up a waitlist on his website for anybody who wants to get in line.
Update 11/8/24 at 4:02 p.m. ET: This post was updated to include a link to Kotalík’s waitlist.
