Video Glasses

Historically, they have been very expensive, bulky, offered a negligible viewing experience, and make you look like a freak in public. However, they are evolving, and the MyVu Crystal Amber Video Glasses for iPod are a milestone in this evolution, solving 4 of these 5 major complaints handily.

I think this review will be of special significance to Metro-North commuters, as train and air commuting are the two of the most practical scenarios for using this product.

I have complained before that, although I feel watching video on my iPhone or iPod Touch to be one of the best ways to kill time on a train commute, it can be a pain in the neck, as you have to hold the iPhone and look down at it.

Depending on the weather and direction of travel, it can also get kind of bright in the car and make it hard to see the screen.

The MyVu Crystal Amber Video Glasses solve both of these problems. The brightness of the screen is not affected by ambient light, as it is in a covered box in front of your nose, and the screen is always front-and center no matter what position your head is in, which is fantastic.

As for quality - these are the first 640×480 resolution video glasses, and I can attest that the quality is excellent - very, very watchable. The iPhone screen itself probably has better color rendition and might appear a bit ’smoother’ - but this is completely trumped by the fact that the MyVu screen looks much larger, brighter, and has better contrast.

When I first put these video glasses on, I was expecting to see ‘how bad it would be’ - I was, instead, instantly impressed, and before I knew it, I forgot what I was doing and was 20 minutes into the movie!

I think this is the best testimonial a pair of video glasses can get - you just forget you are using some new gadget and are simply enjoying the movie.

The weight of the glasses is not a problem, I could easily watch a 2-hour movie with these on.

I was expecting to kind of see two screens and maybe need to cross my eyes or something to make them one, but this wasn’t the case - you put them on your nose and there is magically ONE screen dead center in your field of view.

The glasses only take up your top half of your field of view - you can look down and see a lot of the outside world, and even walk around the house if you needed to just by looking down.

There are two earphones which dangle off the side of the glasses, which are made by Ultimate Ears - the makers of some of the best consumer earsets around, so the audio is just great.

Charging is accomplished by plugging the included USB cable into the attached control pendant, and the unit is rated for 3 hours.

Now, for the downsides…

First off, the 800-lb gorilla in the room - although the MyVu’s are surprisingly small and light, they still make you look like Geordi LaForge from Star Trek. There is yellow-colored see-through plastic on the sides, which allows you to have some awareness of the outside world while you are watching video (like when the conductor laughs at you while asking for your ticket) - a good idea, but the colored glass is probably the most kooky-looking part of the design.

Annoyingly, if you buy the iPod version of these glasses, you get the Amber tint - if you buy the ‘generic video interface’ version, you get the dark tint, which is less freakish. However, if you buy the generic video version, I am pretty sure you can buy an add-on iPod adapter to use with it.

I would have preferred to just get the dark tint version for iPod - why MyVu doesn’t offer it I don’t know.

The fact that you can see through either side of the video screen is also a little less immersive, even if it is practical. It would be great if these glasses came with a black clip-on visor which put you in complete darkness when desired.

With the iPhone, you will probably want to put it in Airplane mode when watching video so you don’t get GSM noise through the earphones. In addition, you can only watch stored videos on your iPhone, you cannot watch YouTube videos or use other applications with the MyVu’s as the display.

If I still lived in Silicon Valley, I would have no problem wearing these on the train, except that everyone would insist I let them try them on. On Metro-North, you are going to have to commit to the fact that you are going to get some funny looks.

On an airplane, I would not hesitate to use these at all, as I could care less what they look like in that scenario, although some airplane users have noted that people still ask about them alot.

However, if you are brave enough to wear these on Metro-North, I would suggest that you are going to be having the best commute experience of anyone on the train, because I cannot think of any better way to kill time on Metro-North than watching a movie with these video glasses.