> I'll bet Pickle's CEO - Daniel Park - all of their pre-order revenues if they miss their Q2 2026 delivery estimate for US customers. If he delivers in Q2, I'll pay him all the money they've accepted from pre-orders; if he doesn't, he pays me (should he accept).
I spend a lot of time on power opt for small systems. The promises w.r.t. power numbers when taken in conjunction with promised features/brightnesses are 100% a lie given current SoC/battery/cooling tech.
"absolutely no latency" -> only apple manages anything close to this, and that -- with custom silicon that can feed data from the camera to screen while it is still being read out from the camera. A no-name startup doing this ain't happening.
I've run into similar companies like this in the past in a few different niches and what they were doing are just repeating specs from Chinese OEM suppliers. They were not making their own hardware at all, just reselling it with custom branding and sometimes styling.
It could be the case here? What would explain the accelerated development timeline, it is possible because it isn't their timeline at all, it is someone else's who started a long time ago. And it may be they are talking about their supplier's two year roadmap or something similar.
PS. One of the companies (or more specifically its owners) that was doing did was eventually charged with fraud.
It seems to be the same with the immersed visor. Lots of promises, one barely functional demo in 2024 and they said mass production was delayed to "after summer 2025" but still nobody has one yet.
I was thinking of backing it and I'm so glad I didn't. Immersed has a great app so I don't think this was a blatant con but I do think they bit off more than they could chew.
I'm surprised no one has tried to skip cameras all together and use ultrasound. mics use two or maybe even three orders of magnitude for an audio -> object inference stack vs visual. of course you can't detect colors or do A LOT of things, but hey, you could make glasses really look like regular glasses, especially if you got rid of the screens too.
>you could make glasses really look like regular glasses
The cameras are not what makes the glasses bulky and people find a lot of utility in taking and sharing pictures and videos from their glasses. So you'll probably always want to have at least one camera on the product for that use case.
Glasses as a computer form factor is not really proven out yet, but cameras on the glasses are one of the things that people are actually using the Meta Raybans for. One of the primary things people do with them is capture POV video. Take away the cameras and you're left with what. ChatGPT on command and headphones and that's it? The Humane Pin would like a word. People buy smart glasses specifically for a rich feature set, the more the better (because it's a nerd/early adopter product as of now).
And also in the real world people just do not care about cameras on glasses as much as people on HN trot out the glasshole articles from a decade ago. Both smart glasses and phones that are actively recording are everywhere already.
> I'm surprised no one has tried to skip cameras all together and use ultrasound.
The ratios of image resolution and viewing distance to physical size are veeeeeeery bad with sound compared to cameras though. Cameras are also completely passive sensors that don't require an attached emitter in most circumstances.
Not sure why you think we have off the shelf miniaturized sonar hardware at scale and shape detection tech that could beat out mobile cameras and computer vision software.
I have a degree in Computer Vision, and, whether Pickle is lying about various capabilities or not, this guy is talking completely out of his ass and a whole lot of what he says is just extremely idiotic.
> tracking blah blah 6DoF blah blah IMU
This whole section is just wildly false. Tracking like shown in the video is easily done with just a camera, 1980s-era sparse optical flow, and basic fucking geometry. No IMU needed. People have been doing far more complex and stable motion tracking with no more input than single camera video for literally decades. And this device doesn't just have a camera; it has two HD stereoptic cameras, so they also get a depth map. You can absolutely do what they show with the hardware that Pickle claims is in the glasses.
(If you want a fantastic example, see the intro sequence to the movie Stranger Than Fiction from 2006.)
> It would take time to affix an open source SLAM pipeline and even more for them to build their own.
And this is a complete non sequitur, as SLAM is also not needed for what they show in the video. Nothing shown requires mapping the area. It's also a joke to say that it would "take time to affix an open source SLAM pipeline" unless by "time" he means a few minutes.
> This would indicate either the software is using real-time depth tracking blah blah
The glasses have fucking binocular cameras in them! What the fuck else would they be for?
> But in the photos of Pickle 1, there is no sign of any spot to charge the device.
There is zero reason whatsoever to believe that those images are photos of the final product and not renders or props. It's like he's never seen marketing material before.
I can't even with this.
This guy's LinkedIn bio says "Aug 2022 - Mar 2023: Attended UVA as a first year studying economics and commerce before dropping out to build in VR full time." So it seems he's a self-important child with zero background. That explains a lot tbh.
>1980s-era corner feature detection, and basic fucking geometry
Which are pieces of how SLAM works.
>You can absolutely do what they show with the hardware that Pickle claims is in the glasses.
World locked content is not novel. Existing glasses can do it today. The claim is that Pickle didn't build it. The obvious answer would be that they are using what Qualcomm or someone else built it as opposed to Pickle building all of this within a month.
> This whole section is just wildly false. Tracking like shown in the video is easily done with just a camera, 1980s-era sparse optical flow, and basic fucking geometry. No IMU needed. People have been doing far more complex and stable motion tracking with no more input than single camera video for literally decades.
Given the amount of tech I own that is supposed to do this (higher end VR headsets with hand tracking, AR glasses with environmental tracking, etc.), I wouldn't dismiss the author's claims.
But I'd be interested in your examples that can achieve what Pickle is offering in a single pair of glasses.
If you really believe Pickle's claim so much and disbelieve OP's analysis so much, you should contact Pickle's CEO to get more info from him. Once you build more trust, you should join the CEO and take on OP's bet.
(I probably should have said sparse feature tracking and not optical flow. People tend to get the wrong idea about what optical flow fundamentally requires. Spatial regularity and density are not inherent but people may assume they need to be.)
Putting aside whether or not they are a fraud, their design looks so good, unlike Meta's ugly glasses. Which of course, might be because it's the one thing they've spent time on in the past 2 months of dev time, and they may not actually be accounting for any practical manufacturing realities.
I am not going to argue about the design looking “good” or not, but it’s irrelevant if the device doesn’t do what it says it does.
The reason AR glasses are chonky and not sexy is because they have a bunch of hardware and batteries and whatnot that require them to be that shape and size.
Assuming they’re fraudulent, they can make it look like anything they want because it doesn’t do what it purports. I’m sure that RayBan and Meta want them to look better but it’s simply not possible with the technology they have.
amelius|1 month ago
This guy is serious.
dmitrygr|1 month ago
"absolutely no latency" -> only apple manages anything close to this, and that -- with custom silicon that can feed data from the camera to screen while it is still being read out from the camera. A no-name startup doing this ain't happening.
bhouston|1 month ago
It could be the case here? What would explain the accelerated development timeline, it is possible because it isn't their timeline at all, it is someone else's who started a long time ago. And it may be they are talking about their supplier's two year roadmap or something similar.
PS. One of the companies (or more specifically its owners) that was doing did was eventually charged with fraud.
charcircuit|1 month ago
I think it's the case, but I also think it will not look or function anything like the mock they showed.
userbinator|1 month ago
Probably 99% of the electronics industry these days is like that. Laptops are one of the most commonly OEM'd products.
wolvoleo|1 month ago
I was thinking of backing it and I'm so glad I didn't. Immersed has a great app so I don't think this was a blatant con but I do think they bit off more than they could chew.
mkl|1 month ago
websiteapi|1 month ago
charcircuit|1 month ago
The cameras are not what makes the glasses bulky and people find a lot of utility in taking and sharing pictures and videos from their glasses. So you'll probably always want to have at least one camera on the product for that use case.
Anon1096|1 month ago
And also in the real world people just do not care about cameras on glasses as much as people on HN trot out the glasshole articles from a decade ago. Both smart glasses and phones that are actively recording are everywhere already.
BugsJustFindMe|1 month ago
The ratios of image resolution and viewing distance to physical size are veeeeeeery bad with sound compared to cameras though. Cameras are also completely passive sensors that don't require an attached emitter in most circumstances.
jayd16|1 month ago
Not sure why you think we have off the shelf miniaturized sonar hardware at scale and shape detection tech that could beat out mobile cameras and computer vision software.
BugsJustFindMe|1 month ago
> tracking blah blah 6DoF blah blah IMU
This whole section is just wildly false. Tracking like shown in the video is easily done with just a camera, 1980s-era sparse optical flow, and basic fucking geometry. No IMU needed. People have been doing far more complex and stable motion tracking with no more input than single camera video for literally decades. And this device doesn't just have a camera; it has two HD stereoptic cameras, so they also get a depth map. You can absolutely do what they show with the hardware that Pickle claims is in the glasses.
(If you want a fantastic example, see the intro sequence to the movie Stranger Than Fiction from 2006.)
> It would take time to affix an open source SLAM pipeline and even more for them to build their own.
And this is a complete non sequitur, as SLAM is also not needed for what they show in the video. Nothing shown requires mapping the area. It's also a joke to say that it would "take time to affix an open source SLAM pipeline" unless by "time" he means a few minutes.
> This would indicate either the software is using real-time depth tracking blah blah
The glasses have fucking binocular cameras in them! What the fuck else would they be for?
> But in the photos of Pickle 1, there is no sign of any spot to charge the device.
There is zero reason whatsoever to believe that those images are photos of the final product and not renders or props. It's like he's never seen marketing material before.
I can't even with this.
This guy's LinkedIn bio says "Aug 2022 - Mar 2023: Attended UVA as a first year studying economics and commerce before dropping out to build in VR full time." So it seems he's a self-important child with zero background. That explains a lot tbh.
charcircuit|1 month ago
>1980s-era corner feature detection, and basic fucking geometry
Which are pieces of how SLAM works.
>You can absolutely do what they show with the hardware that Pickle claims is in the glasses.
World locked content is not novel. Existing glasses can do it today. The claim is that Pickle didn't build it. The obvious answer would be that they are using what Qualcomm or someone else built it as opposed to Pickle building all of this within a month.
brcmthrowaway|1 month ago
Not with imperceptible latency
NBJack|1 month ago
But I'd be interested in your examples that can achieve what Pickle is offering in a single pair of glasses.
fuzzythinker|1 month ago
BugsJustFindMe|1 month ago
unknown|1 month ago
[deleted]
ruufu|1 month ago
notfried|1 month ago
garciasn|1 month ago
The reason AR glasses are chonky and not sexy is because they have a bunch of hardware and batteries and whatnot that require them to be that shape and size.
Assuming they’re fraudulent, they can make it look like anything they want because it doesn’t do what it purports. I’m sure that RayBan and Meta want them to look better but it’s simply not possible with the technology they have.