This is World’s First AR Headset For Mobiles Made by an Indian

Here’s the first augmented-reality headset for mobiles that works on both Android and iOS devices.

Holoboard is a global product, which has been made by an Indian. 

(Photo: The Quint)

There aren’t a lot of Indian startups that work on innovative products or technologies. With that I am referring to augmented reality seen with devices like Google Glass that never launched.

It’s heartening to see an Indian startup called Tesseract looking to make this happen with its product called Holoboard. What is Holoboard all about? Let’s find out.

Kshitij Marwah is the founder of Tesseract, who has worked with his team in the country on multiple versions of Holoboard, before finalising on this model.

This is the world and India’s first AR headset that works with your smartphone.

Using the phone's front camera, Holoboard utilises its built-in 3D tracking and mapping software to project within the space around you. It offers holograms in your physical space with a field of view of 90 degrees.

Weighing 125 grams without the smartphone, the Holoboard rests comfortable over your head without making you feel nauseous and uneasy (which is otherwise an issue with virtual reality headsets like the Oculus).

You can watch movies, make hands-free video calls or even learn your favourite subjects with visual 3D graphics right in front of your eyes. The Holoboard comes bundled with a gesture-based remote controller that runs on Bluetooth Low Energy.

It comes with two programmable buttons and you can tap and rotate the remote to play games. Holoboard works with any smartphone, be it Android or iOS. Just slide it in and download the Holoboard app to get started.

Holoboard has been built around a new AR ecosystem which is not confined to Android or iOS like ARCore and ARKit are. 

The end product is likely to be available in the coming months, as confirmed by the company, and it is expected to be priced starting at Rs 10,000. Kshitij says the price could be brought down, once he manages to get to economies of scale - if there is a good enough demand for the product.

Nevertheless, the Holoboard is something we've never seen before - and it does have sci-fi ring to it, IronMan style!