Epson Drone Soar App Provides Augmented Reality Head-Up Display for Moverio Smart Glasses
The AR app works for DJI drone pilots using the Epson Moverio smart glasses, providing them with flight telemetry data and the UAV’s live video feed.
Flying a drone is often difficult enough, and the constant need to split your focus between the unmanned aerial vehicle's live video feed on your smartphone or tablet and what the drone is actually doing above can result in some disorienting, imperfect experiences. Epson, which has worked on the Moverio augmented reality smart glass platform for quite some time now, has developed the Drone Soar app and hopes to do away with these frustrations by allowing DJI pilots to fly their drones with an informative AR experience that allows you to keep your eyes up and your piloting precise.
The concept is simple enough, albeit comprised of impressive technological advancements unavailable to use just a few short years ago. By wearing the smart glasses, users can simultaneously watch their drone soar above and look through the UAV’s camera feed. This essentially does away with the constant head tilting between the phone in your hands below and the drone you’re actually piloting above.
Additionally, the head-up display provided through the Epson Moverio BT-300 FPV Drone Edition glasses gives you an informative picture of how your vehicle is doing. This includes telemetry data, a variety of practical flight tools, the aforementioned real-time video feed and the comfort of having this all packaged into one place: right in front of your eyes.
“In a couple of years there will be more than seven million drones flying in U.S. airspace,” said SF Drone School Founder Werner Von Stein. “With so many drones in the sky, it becomes a necessity to fly them safely.”
To Von Stein’s point, eliminating the distracting requirement to keep looking at two different objects while piloting a substantially weighty and arguably dangerous vehicle above people is probably a healthy and logical stepping stone toward safer UAV navigation.
If even a handful of people manage to avert colliding with infrastructure or generally losing control of their drone by using this seemingly intuitive new way of operating, the Epson Moverio BT-300 glasses have justified their existence beyond the mere cool factor. However, the features included in this headset do seem cool enough on their own, with downloadable maps available of the region being flown, flight restriction alerts notifying you if you veer to close to geofenced areas and in-flight camera settings and battery status easily changed or viewed.
For those of you with the right equipment at your disposal, the Epson Drone Soar app is now available on the Moverio Apps Market. Feel free to chime in below, and share some of your personal experiences.
