Tilt Five aims to popularize augmented reality, starting with Android and iOS

Tech giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta seem to be struggling to expand the field of view of lightweight AR glasses into something eye-catching that you can wear anywhere and in a wide variety of lighting conditions, but the timing of these supposed glasses is AR for consumers always seems to be about half a century away. In the near term, there will be glasses with camera and audio, as well as developer kits or high-end devices such as HoloLens and Magic Leap, which can be useful for education or some special purposes. However, even high-end augmented reality glasses often fail to provide a convincing immersive experience because their additions are often strictly limited to the central area of ​​your vision.

And then there's the Tilt Five, starting at $359 for goggles, a stick, and a reflective board. The Tilt Five system convincingly increases visibility above and below the playing field, allowing you to naturally see your friends, family and physical surroundings. As the Tilt Five website says, this is a limited approach, focusing on board games and "new games".

“Our goal is to fight the big players. This is the end goal. I know we don't think of it as a small thing. Technologies change over time. We're going to get better. We're going to innovate, we're going to have amazing content in our system," Ellsworth told me recently. "We're going to be the center point in your living room that makes your real world amazing, and you're not going to synthesize what's already amazing in your world."

“It has a 110-degree field of view — far more than any other optical augmented reality headset,” notes augmented reality display expert Carl Guttag in his article on Tilt Five. "What makes it 'magic' is that everything seems to work as it should, which I haven't seen in any other AR device."

That field of view is roughly what's achievable on most consumer VR headsets, including the $2 Quest 299. view is only meant to be a quick check of your physical space before returning to your fully simulated environment. Tilt Five, on the other hand, is tested with many hours of gaming sessions. And while Quest 2 packs everything into a headset, Tilt Five still requires an external computing device to power its goggles. At the time of this writing, it's still a PC. And with one PC for a couple of points, the cost and complexity of an augmented reality gaming night on Tilt Five increases significantly. A set of three points, wands, and a large game board was offered on Kickstarter for $879.

Focus on the future

The key for Ellsworth right now is focus – something that eluded its predecessor CastAR – and that means giving support to sponsors, setting the stage for Tilt Five's next steps.

Shipping is still ongoing and subject to ongoing international supply chain nightmares affecting every major manufacturer. “With the exception of the factory shutdown due to COVID,” Ellsworth recently told us, “they are on track to fully deliver on their Kickstarter promises this summer (originally scheduled for summer 2020 delivery). The startup recently announced a deal to port select games from Asmodee Digital to the platform, with Asmodee publishing well-known board games such as CATAN, Ticket to Ride and Pandemic, suggesting there could be some big games in the store. Tilt five. Also, one of the first eyeglass-compatible apps is Tabletopia, a free sandbox app with a wide selection of board games available.

And those next steps? This could play a key role in boosting Tilt Five's appeal.

“We are starting to internally try out our driver, which allows multiple headsets to be used on the same computer. And since we're doing reprojection in a headset, we don't have the same requirements as in VR, where you need insanely high frame rates, because we're scaling the images coming from the game engine to 180fps. So you always get a smooth tracking image on your desk, even if you have multiple headsets on the same device. Also, our Android drivers are very close, so they should be available pretty soon,” Ellsworth said. “iOS a little later this year. So that gives a lot of flexibility to the computing device."

However, she warned that the problem is not to get the Tilt Five glasses to "run" from a given device, but to get developers to create cross-compatible content.

“I would be sad if someone tomorrow took Tilt Five and connected it to Android, and there would not be enough content for them,” said Ellsworth. “I don’t know exactly how to answer the exact timeline because there is work to be done and it is difficult and there is also a content side that needs to fall into place.”

Ellsworth noted that they were able to launch the glasses from the steam deck in about 20 minutes. She warned that compatibility will depend on the content, but "as we improve on Android, iOS and other devices like that, it will just lower the barrier for people who want to play alone and in a group without having to fish." wires to a laptop or something like that. You wouldn't need to buy a cutting-edge Android phone to get a decent experience."

“Our long-term goals: we want this device to be so attractive that it looks like the first home ping-pong machine that everyone had,” said Ellsworth. “We want to cater… let’s call them ‘adventurous gamers’… gamers who have all the gaming devices in the house. They will have a switch. They will have an Xbox. They are probably playing games on their computer. They probably have a VR headset, which is a billion dollar market. So that's a pretty big targeted market for a first market."

Ellsworth originally got her technology from Valve, noting that "there was still a notion in those days that someone would just stumble upon a way to build this perfect augmented reality system. And you won't need to use something like a game board and people are still dreaming and hoping that they will stumble upon some way to make it happen. And these are the laws of physics. It's really difficult."

“At Tilt Five, we all support this mission of making a positive impact on the world that will delight hundreds of millions of people,” said Ellsworth. "That's the goal."

The Tilt Five system can be reserved on the company's website.

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