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Vuzix iWear Video Headphone Goggles - Unboxing & Review

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I posted this article in the RC Groups Forum yesterday, but decided to post it here as well for those who do not follow that forum.

After ordering the new Vuzix Video Headphones 4 weeks and 4 days ago from the Vuzix website, they finally arrived on my door step today.
I recorded a video of the unboxing and of my initial thoughts about them which you can see on YouTube at this link:

To not duplicate everything that I said in the video, here is a short synopsis of the pros & cons:

Cons:
01. Expensive at $499.00
02. A bit heavy at 1lb. 9.6oz.
03. No controls for image contrast, sharpness or color saturation.
04. Only 720p resolution.
05. Slight screen door effect is visible when viewing bright scenes if you are looking for it, but that quickly became a non issue as I enjoyed the view.
06. Would like to see a bit more contrast, sharpness or color saturation in the image, but that is just my personal preference. You may feel differently.

Pros:
01. Great build quality.
02. Easily fits over my prescription eyeglasses.
03. Comfortable fit even with the weight of just over 1.5 pounds.
04. Easy to take on and off and easy to get a good adjustment on your face & head.
05. Nice large screen that you can see clearly from edge to edge and corner to corner. In my opinion it is the perfect size so that that I don't have to move my eyes all around to see the edges.
06. Able to easily read small print and all of the drone's flight data on the edges of the screen.
07. Nice, clear 720p image.
08. You can look down while wearing the goggles and see everything below you thereby keeping perspective of your surroundings.
09. Image in goggles is immersive enough that you can easily not be distracted by light & views entering from under the goggles.
10. Outstanding goggles to using for piloting drones with a 720p video feed like the DJI Inspire.
11. Sun shield is included which looks nice, but I have not yet tried it out so I can't say how it works
12. Great sound quality with 3 EQ presets, one of which ads extra bass that is fabulous.
13. Noise cancelling headphones that really reduce outside noise with built in microphones that can be turned on and off.
14. Can be passed to other persons without worrying about adjusting the lenses since there are no adjustments and they just work whether you need glasses or not.

You can download the user manual here:
Vuzix | View The Future
Click on "Product User Guides" and then scroll down to the next to the last entry on that page for the correct .pdf file.

Field Report:
I used these new goggles out at the flying field for a couple hours this afternoon with my Inspire-1 and I must say that they performed GREAT! They JUST WORK!

After doing the one time fit to your head it takes a matter of about 2 seconds to put them on and take them off. Each time I put them on today they just slid perfectly into position with no need to adjust them at all.

One of the things that I really like about them is that I can look down and clearly see my Tx controller & tablet and am aware of my surroundings.

There is little to no light that enters the top of the goggles, but there is of course light that enters underneath coming up from your chin area. Today was a bright, sunny, cloudless day and I first sat in the shade of my car and had a great image that was not at all hindered by any light coming in from beneath the bottom portion of the goggles. I then went into the direct sun and found to my surprise that if I faced the sun directly I had a better image, (due to less ambient light reaching the screen from under the bottom portion of the goggles), then if the sun was to the side or behind me. I was happy enough using them in the sun that I don’t plan on even using the included sun shield as it is not needed for me to see the screen clearly.

When I am wearing the goggles, the image that I see on the screen is about 3 times as large as the screen on my 8" Shield tablet, (when I compare looking straight ahead at the goggles screen to looking down at the tablet). The tablet of course looks substantially sharper, but it is also about 3 times smaller so that makes sense to me with the pixels being more condensed ratio wise.

The advertisement for these goggles states that the screen is like looking at a 125” TV from 10 feet away. I wanted to test that claim so I sat about 10 feet away from my 70” TV and looked at the size of the screen in the goggles and then at the size of my TV screen. I can honestly say that the screen in the goggles was at least 33% larger than my large TV screen.

These goggles are great for FPV and would be great to hand to a friend or client for a “ride along” since no adjustments are needed, however in certain bright scenes the color tint was not always exactly accurate. In some scenes the bright sidewalks had a light yellowish/green tint as did some spots of bare ground, but nothing that was a deal breaker for me, however It would be nice to have a tint adjustment available to the user.

All in all, I LOVE these goggles and am very glad I bought them!

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Using my limited Pythagoras skills, I calculate that at around a 50 degree FOV. That;s a lot better than any of the FatSharks. Not as big as the 90 degrees of the Headplays though.
 
Using my limited Pythagoras skills, I calculate that at around a 50 degree FOV. That;s a lot better than any of the FatSharks. Not as big as the 90 degrees of the Headplays though.
That is some pretty good math! Vuzix advertises a 55º diagonal field of view in these goggles whereas the Headplay advertises a 72º field of view.
I had the Headplay HD Goggles several months ago and really liked them. They had nice image quality similar to these Vuzix Goggles, but for me the image, (using the larger magnification Fresnel lens), was too big in the Headplay's where I couldn't see the edges of the screen & could not read the small print of the Inspire's telemetry in them. Using the less magnified Fesnel lens brought the image down in size similar to these Vuzix Goggles.
The problem for me with the Headplay was that I needed to install very strong glasses inside the goggles that were almost 3x stronger than my normal reading glasses to be able to see the image clearly. This drove my eyes nuts after a while & put undue strain on them so I had to sell them to someone with better vision than me. I also had some trouble taking the Headplay's on and off. Once I did get them on it took me a while to get them situated on my face just right so that i could see from edge to edge with the lesser powered Fesnel lens. With the Vuzix Goggles I don't have any of those issues, but they do cost twice as much at $499.00!
Don't get me wrong the Headplay's are a great product especially at only $250.00, but they do not work for certain people who need to wear prescription glasses, whereas the Vuzix Goggles do.
 
Yeah, I understand that. I find the image to be too big in the Headplays when using the Inspire for the reasons you mention.
Those goggles do look great.
 

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