Devon-based LED maker Plessey has announced a display device design and long-term supply agreement with smart glasses and augmented reality
Devon-based LED maker Plessey has announced a display device design and long-term supply agreement with smart glasses and augmented reality (AR) company Vuzix.
It will support the development and production of AR products that combine Plessey’s “micro-LED light source technology”, according to Plessey, with Vuzix’ expertise and intellectual property in smart glasses and essential optics technologies.
Vuzix-BladeVuzix has already created a family of smart glasses, including the Vuzix Blade (pictured) – within which its key IP is glass waveguide optics with nanostructures that focus high-resolution graphics and images into the visual field of the user.
Plessey is offering emissive displays to replace reflective micro-displays that need additional space-consuming light sources and optics – it revealed its first working HD monochrome (blue) micro-display yesterday.
Exactly what sort of display Vuzix will initially be getting from Plessey is not revealed – the use of the phrase ‘micro-LED light source technology’ above says little.
Plessey did describe a 5 x 5 x 5mm optical cube combining three (R, G and B) displays to Electronics Weekly recently.
Ultimately, smart glasses companies are looking for a single RGB display per eye – something that Plessey is working towards – it announced native green emissive micro-LEDs recently and has read phosphor conversion and green phosphor conversion technology to call on.
According to Plessey, what it supplies will be “a single self-emitting display which has integrated micro-optical elements”, and it continued: “Existing light source systems have considerable losses all the way through to the waveguide and the optical systems around them are bulky and complex, whereas an emissive micro-LED has very simple optical requirements, allowing for a much smaller footprint with minimal system losses by placing the light source directly in front of the waveguide.”
“We are very excited to expand our relationship with Plessey,” said Vuzix CEO Paul Travers. “Their micro-LED technology represents a key part of the solution needed to bring the form and functionality of Vuzix next-generation smart glasses to the look and feel of fashion-forward glasses, solutions the world will be clamouring for.”
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