Maybe AR/VR isn’t meant for homes… this conceptual pair of Nothing MR goggles transform the outdoors, immersing you in new worlds while keeping you aware of your current one.
Dubbed the Voyage (1), this ski-goggle-shaped headset enriches outdoor experiences, bringing you into a new world. Most MR devices find themselves being used in highly technical fields like medicine or engineering – the Voyage (1) doesn’t take that approach. Instead, it finds the ‘killer app’ of the MR world, just like health monitoring became the ‘killer app’ of the Apple Watch. Quite like how Pokemon GO used AR to push people outside their homes, the Voyage (1) enables people to experience a new reality layered over their own existing reality. It transforms mundane streets into foreign destinations, a boring highway into a mountainous drive, and a bland sky into an aurora-filled one in the arctic circle.
Designer: Junha Kam
The Voyage (1) sits on your eyes, with a sleek design that doesn’t weigh you down or look awkward on your face. A built-in Glyph Interface helps you be aware of your surroundings as well as the world around you be aware of your movements, and depending on your use, a pair of handheld controllers let you navigate your MR experience.
The glasses are unusually sleek, in a way that keeps in line with Nothing’s catalog of products. The only thing that stands apart is the lack of a transparent housing anywhere on the device.
The Voyage (1) is designed to be worn while moving. The mixed-reality ability gives you pass-through features that let you see the world around you so you’re fully aware of your surroundings, and the Glyph Interface ends up being an indicator of sorts, letting others know where you’re looking or turning as you cycle, skateboard, hoverboard, or jog with the MR headset on.
Although primed for outdoor use, the headset’s made to be worn indoors too, with a pair of controllers that help you use the Voyage (1) like a traditional VR headset for browsing the web, playing games, or engaging in indoor-based VR experiences.
Ultimately, the Voyage (1) tries to do what every metaverse company’s been trying to do too – figure out what’s the killer app for AR/VR/MR experiences. Zuckerberg and Tim Cook have been pushing the metaverse pretty hard for the past 5 years (Meta’s focus has been on VR, Apple’s on AR), but even though these devices have existed for quite long now, they feel like a novelty. Everyone who buys an Oculus Quest ends up letting it sit on a shelf and gather dust after 2-3 months of intense use. Maybe with a focus on reinventing the outdoors, the Voyage (1) will be able to help boost mass adoption for the metaverse. Sadly though, this device is entirely conceptual – but if Carl Pei is reading this…
