One maker, Matt Desmaris, recently revisited the idea. “I made PiGlass V1 in 2018,” he explains. “I wanted to try to make a heads-up display wearable and see how far I could take it. I kept running into performance issues with Raspberry Pi Zero when I was trying to add more features, and I made a note to revisit the project when Raspberry Pi Zero 2 came out.”
PiGlass V2 has some extra features, like bone conduction earphones. It also makes use of a wearer’s hat.
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Virtual vision
Matt was in contact with us throughout the process of making this and the build, actually, was quite quick, as he elaborates: “Construction was straightforward – a soldering iron, heat gun, and small flat-head [screwdriver] are all that’s required. Construction took place over a couple weeks as I progressively got more and more parts in. Everything is secured with zip ties or heat shrink.”
The whole system is controlled with a gamepad, which makes for an interesting sight.
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“There is a button on the audio hat on the back of my head,” Matt reveals. “It is the start/stop button. Start the menu program or kill every program that could be running. The menu program uses the [picamera] API which allows it to be recorded, including the text overlays. The menu program has a few options: camera (from PiGlass V1) at 1080p, record video with audio at 1080 p, stream YouTube at 720p, Emulation Station, Kodi at 720p, and Steam Link [with controller issues].”
While Matt developed it hooked up to a monitor, he’s tested it thoroughly by watching streaming video and playing some retro games – something we heartily approve of.
Seeing cyber
“Within the menu/related programs it works very well; some things take a few seconds to load,” Matt tells us. “The 720p display looks really good; all the text in menus and captions are easily readable. The camera program allows you to take 1080p images/silent videos, and video with audio records at 1080p, 25 fps, with 44kB audio. YouTube stream will livestream to YouTube in 720p, 25 fps, with 44kB audio.”
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With the project now at an advanced stage, Matt has been thinking of future improvements as well: “I want to add voice commands and I have a few ideas. The microphones are located on the back of my head and they can pick up my voice at normal speaking levels. I want to add real-time object detection. I have tested demo code and it looks like [Raspberry Pi] Zero 2 W can do it. I want to make a program that uses the gamepad to be able to select which type of object is being detected.”
We very much look forward to the cyberpunk cyberglass future.
![](http://images.ctfassets.net/2lpsze4g694w/1DxmohEMiIRCg6muZdBxCa/2ae3bd6014b63b62fc6646578da36100/Screenshot_2022-02-21_at_05.49.02.png?w=800)