When Google Glass gave its first public appearance, the crowd was awe inspired by its rather unobstrusive design language. The folks at Epson though, had other plans. While the BT200 device itself is on the chunkier side of things, it is undoubtedly, a pair of super high tech glasses. Whats more, the thick frame, and tinted front filters, makes the BT200 look a lot more like those fancy pieces of tech you saw in old Sci-Fi flicks. That said, the BT200 doesn’t allow its rather clunk frame to interfere in its functionality. While Google Glass has lenses covering only the side of your right eye, the BT200 features lenses which sit right in front of both eyes. This way, any image you are seeing through the glasses fall on the center of your vision, rather than on just one side, thus making any use of the BT200 hassle free and pleasing to the eyes.
As I mentioned earlier, the BT200 is truly still an experimental device, and that is made clear, when you see that it features next to zero adjustment tools provided on the device. What Epson has done to give the customers a bit of a respite, is that they have made the nose guard bendable , the plastic arms flexible, and also included a set of removable rubber stabilizer fins, which you can place on the arms. All this makes sure that the BT200 does not fall off your face every now and then. Rather, you will find that these quick fixes provided by Epson, actually do a pretty decent job overall. Another modification that you can do to the BT200, is that you can replace the in-house light filter, with a darker one, in case you want a more immersive experience. You can even remove the filter entirely if you so desire, and don’t worry, the BT200 will not expose what you are watching, to the outside world, even in this scenario.
What I did find is that, when the BT200 is not in use , the outer curved projection lenses look slightly blurry, but rest assured, the inner glass and filters are transparent enough to help you look at what is in front of you.
Coming to the innards of the BT200, we can see for one, that Epson has not made the device an autonomous device like the Google Glass. Rather, the BT200 depends on a wired controller device for its working. Basically, what we have is a smartphone sized block that features a trackpad, and the standard set Android control buttons, connected to the side of the BT200 device using a 30 pin connector. Yes, it all does sound very bulky, but then again, this is only the Beta version of the device , and hopefully, the final consumer version which comes will feature a more autonomous device.
