Introduction and Updates

January is always extremely busy both with CES (last week) and the SPIE AR/VR/MR (next week) conferences and exhibitions. Not only is there the time to attend the events, but I also collect a massive amount of information and photos to analyze and report on. Due to the timing and significant overlap in the companies that attend both CES and AR/VR/MR, as with previous years, I may do some combining of the two conferences in my reporting.

New to my calendar is that I’m speaking at the February 23, 2024, Los Angeles SID One Day Conference at the Double Tree Hotel in Buena Park.

Yes, I Preordered the Apple Vision Pro (AVP)

As if I didn’t have enough to do in January, during CES, Apple announced that the Apple Vision Pro (AVP) would be available on Feb 2nd. I dutifully set my alarm for 5 am PST and preordered an AVP for evaluation, the cost, including corrective lenses, keyboard, Apple Care (worried about the fragility of it), and Tax, being $4,800.52. I’m planning on a significant effort to evaluate the AVP. Just me to the “select” 60 to 80 thousand others that preordered.

Sony New MR Headset

While I have “media access” at CES, I don’t go to the formal media presentation days before the Expo opens. Most of these formal presentations are “marketing pitches” with little technical content and are available to view later if anything important is announced.

At their media event, Sony announced a dual 4K OLED MR headset that seems very similar in specs to the Apple Vision Pro. I went to Sony to see if there was any information or demos, and there was not the least information to be had, but they did help with getting in contact with corporate media offices. This seems to suggest a bit of a last-minute effort since, in the past, things shown at their presentation would also be at the booth.

I plan to put out a separate short article comparing and contrasting the new Sony XR device to the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest Pro. In terms of human ergonomics, the new Sony XR headset seems to get many things right that both Apple and/or Meta missed including a flip-up display and much better location of the passthrough cameras. On the con side, it seems to have less in terms of SLAM sensing capability and less CPU processing power than the AVP. Apple, Sony, and Meta seem to be in denial about the problems of supporting a headset without the use of a front to back strap.

Companies I Met with at CES 2024

This blog has a worldwide following, and I am grateful for the recognition, access, and information (both public and that which must be kept private) that was received at the shows. For most of my four days at CES, I started at 8 AM and didn’t end until 9 PM (4 PM on the last day).

In the course of CES, I met with over 30 companies. Below is an outline of the companies I met with publicly on the floor or in private meetings where they agreed to share some information (while some of the meeting content they consider private and will not be shared). The order below is based on the order in which I first (if there were multiple meetings) met with them at CES.

1. Afference – Electrical-stimulation Haptics
2. dotLumen – Headset with haptic and audio output for guiding people with blindness
3. AddOptics – Custom molding optics, including push-pull lenses for waveguides
4. Photonic Crystal Co.’s – transparent projection screens, working on automotive HUD film
5. Digilens – Diffractive waveguides and headsets with its ARGO modular headset
6. Canon MR – Pass-through Mixed Reality headsets and software
7. MyW – Diffractive waveguide glasses
8. LetinAR – Freeform and multiple pupil expander optics. Sharp and Nimo both had LetinAR-based glasses in their booths.
9. Everysight – Off-axis into a curved semi-mirror combiner with MicroLED displays with relatively small FOV focused on sports and activewear markets. They support interchangeable lenses and have a new approach for supporting prescription lenses. They spun out of Elbit, which had massive experience in military AR glasses.
10. TCL –Color MicroLED (3 panels combined with X-Cube) with diffractive waveguide
11. VueReal – MicroLED for direct-view display and microdisplays
12. Sightful – Optics Mixed Reality (birdbath) glasses with a computer inside the keyboard
13. Ocutrx OcuLenz – Very wide FOV birdbath optics, initially aimed at low-vision but now seeking other applications.
14. TI DLP – Show automotive HUD applications but still pursuing AR applications
15. FiC HUD – They demonstrated a laser beam scanning (LBS) automotive HUD.
16. Almalence Digital Lens – Uses AI-based processing to pre-correct for optics limitations to improve resolution and reduce chroma aberrations.
17. Lightning Silicon – Spun out of Kopin, they produce OLED microdisplays for VR/MR headsets. They have a variety of different sizes and resolutions of Micro-OLED displays. Lightning was one of the first to develop pancake optics for VR use and has just developed a lightweight all-plastic pancake design. Their display and optics are in Panasonic’s ShiftAll headsets.
18. Solos – Audio smart glasses that can use ChatGPT for audio language translations
19. WiseEar – Sensors connect to ears or other contact points that sense various facial movements for hands-free control.
20. Nimo – A small computer module that supports multiple computer screens via a USB-C connection. They had their own LetinAR headset and also supports Xreal and Rokid headsets.
21. Vuzix is a long–time maker of AR/MR headsets and glasses using DLP and MicroLED displays with their newer optics using diffractive waveguides.
22. Tilt-5 – They have a very different approach to MR using on-glasses projectors and retro-reflective screens for gaming and “sand table” visualization. I had a long discussion with CEO Jeri Elseworth about our past lives in computer graphics and electronics. We hope to do some videos together in the future.  
23. Leia – Light field flat panel monitors/laptops
24. Breylon – A monitor that combines a flat panel display with optics to produce a curved image with the focus further away (essentially a very large birdbath-like optics).  They also demonstrated a “monitor” with optics producing up to three depth layers.
25. Lumotive – Phase-LCOS-based laser scanning devices, at least initially aimed at Lidar and similar 3-D imaging. They claim more precise control and the ability to programmably change and adapt the scanning pattern over MEMS mirrors and rotating prisms/mirrors.
26. Mitsui Chemicals – Makers of polymer (plastic) waveguide substrates and nano-imprinting.
27. BMW – Demonstrated their glasses-based HUD display with a drive around the Vegas Convention Center. The demonstration used Xreal AR glasses and an outside-in head tracker mounted under the rearview mirror.
28. May LCOS – May LCOS of Korea has a series of LCOS devices for conventional displays and demonstrated phase-LCOS holograms.  
29. Xreal – The highest volume maker of see-through AR displays using birdbath optics. This year, they were demonstrating added tracking and control capabilities.
30. Cellid – A relatively new entrant in diffractive waveguides.
31. Mojie/Meta-Bounds – Demonstrated monochrome (green) MicroLED (from JBD) with their own polymer (plastic) waveguides.

CES Logistics

The reason I attend CES is that it brings the world of technology to a single place. In a single day, I can visit Mixed Reality companies from Europe, China, Korea, Japan, and all over the United states. While there is a lot to see on the floor much of the “best” things are seen in private meetings, what I call “the show within the show.” These private meetings happen in hotel suites, private rooms within the booths, and at meals. Much of what I see in these meeting is “on background” and can’t be shared yet, but prepares me to watch for future introductions.

Getting around CES is a mess, and while the crowds are about 2/3rds the number pre-pandemic, the conference is still spread out between many venues. It can take over 15 minutes to get from one side of a venue or casino Hotel to another, and it can take more than 30 minutes (with Uber/Lift/Taxis, more with shuttle busses) to get between venues due to traffic. Thus, a private meeting for an off-site hotel suite on the strip typically means committing over two hours. To reduce travel time, I tried to limit going back and forth between the main Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) and the Venetian Expo, usually by starting the day at one venue and ending at the other.

About 3/4ths of my time was committed to pre-arranged meetings in suites or booths. My “free” time was usually spent in the dedicated AR/VR/MR area of LVCC Central Hall. I tried to find other MR companies in the LVCC venues, Westgate (Designs and Source = Mostly China) conference rooms, or the Venetian Expo Hall G (Eureka Park with country pavilions on the lower level), plus some other scatter pavilions such as in North Hall’s “Enterprise Zone.” Still, it was an impossible task to cover everything in MR at CES.

Personal Observation on “CES Zones and Parks”

While I appreciate that the country pavilions and other “zones” help bring startups and smaller companies worldwide to CES, they tend to bury these same companies in the figurative haystack of dissimilar technologies. CES tries to help by letting you select companies by category (AR/VR/XR) in their exhibitor directory, but this turns up many companies, some only loosely connected to the AR/VR/XR. It creates a lot of effort to discover and find companies; thus, these companies get overlooked. Additionally, it isolates companies with similar interests from getting together. I would much rather see the AR/VR/XR area of Central Hall expanded with some smaller “enterprise” booths. I remember there used to be small booths pre-2021 in the South Hall AR/VR/XR area. Something had to give on my schedule, and it was mostly AR/VR/XR companies in the widely scattered “zones.”

Crunch Time

The above list briefly outlines the companies I saw at CES. In the following days and weeks, I planned loosely group companies by subject and to go into some more depth as to what I saw along with pictures. I will try to get some or of my quick takes on the products above out before I leave for SPIE AR/VR/MR next week. Then, just a day after I return from SPIE, I will pick up my Apple Vision Pro for evaluation and start reporting on what I saw at AR/VR/MR 2024.