Car HUDs Are Bad. Jaguar Land Rover Is Testing Tech to Change That

New technology no Fullly arrive, remind myself while packing on the pirate eye, then put a greatly modified bike helmet on my head. It is not the most sparkling prize. But here, in a small office in a modest business park on the outskirts of Cambridge, England, it can be the foundations of something very cool

I am here to meet Alafocal opticsAn young company that has patented a new type of nanoscale lens with the ability to convert everything from hypothetical and Rewarded reality headphonesTo night vision glasses, endoscopes, cameras and displays (Huds). This is the last that caused my attention, after hearing Jaguar Land Rover, I began a research project to discover whether the lens can improve, and with it, road safety.

Its manufacturers also claim – and they prove this, with the aforementioned helmet, as well as the cultivated Meta 3 endeavor – that the lens can produce a digital image very clearly, even if you have a bad vision, without the need for glasses.

Founded in 2022 as Lark, but since Olyfocal Optics, the company is headed by its former Royal Academy of Engineering Foundation, Dr. Pawan Shretha. Dr. Ash Solsbury, the former Vice President of Technology at Microsoft and the former director of Meta AR, joined late last year as president, at the same time as the startup company obtained a $ 5.3 million financing round.

Allfocal Optics says that the lens it created provides technological breakthroughs. First, when used in the AR or VR headphone, such as Apple Vision Pro or Meta Quest 3, it claims to provide a clear vision for the younger, even if they need glasses but do not wear them.

Even if you need a large prescription, or suffer from astigmatism, its makers say that the lens is playing a clear picture directly to your retina, completely transcending the glasses needs. In theory, two people can share the same AR or VR headphone, even if one has a 20/20 vision and other needs very strong corrective lenses.

I tried several preliminary models of the lens, and yes, it works. I don’t wear glasses, so the first width – the width of the saved digital text from a laptop to a reinforced headphone – does not seem excessively impressive. But then I repeated the test while wearing very strong glasses, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, yet the digital text was still a pin. It is a kind of technical clarification that takes some time to estimate it really, but when your mind finally connects the points that appear to be magic.

Not only does the lens avoid poor vision, but it also produces a more clear image than Microsoft (may rest in peace), although the inputs are the same resolution 720p. With the first model lens, it was easy – this is the place where Eyeping comes – to read part of the text where the half was reinforced and half of it was printed on a sheet, but with Hololens was impossible. The augmented half of each line was unclear.

It looks sharp

What’s more, the text remains sharp regardless of what your eyes already focus on. I first tried to focus on my hands a few inches from my face, then on the other side of the room, yet the augmented text remained focused. Interestingly, its size adapts depending on the place where you are looking for; I can make it appear as a small line on my finger, or as a writing size on the opposite wall. It is also possible to consider it, focusing on the average distance as do while driving, but regardless of what your eyes and lenses do, the digital text remains sharp and responsible.