The Blade3000 does look like something that people will wear and even wear in public. (Nothing else passes that test) -- so it's something to watch. It is getting attention in the right places.
Entrepreneur
With two titans and a unicorn startup leaving their footprints in the AR field, how can the much smaller Vuzix compete? By aiming lower, says founder and CEO Paul Travers.
"We come from the perspective of practical," he told me at the company's CES booth. "We don't think you need to land the whale. It's a different approach than most companies."
Indeed, its newest device, the Blade 3000, may just be the first piece of AR hardware to be adapted by tech enthusiasts since the Google Glass. The company is aiming to introduce it to the market for under $1,000 this year, with the price dropping to under $500 in 2018. And unlike the $1,500 Google Glass, which had a design that resembled a one-eyed cyborg, the Blade 3000 looks like a pair of Oakley sunglasses.
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Vuzix, which was founded in 1997, holds more than 41 patents and has 10 additional patents pending, according to its website. It received a $24.8 million investment from Intel in 2015. Travers had worked at Eastman Kodak but said he left after many of his projects were killed by the company. He first started a business making sound cards in a basement and then sold it.
And even though Vuzix has been around for two decades, he still doesn't consider the company successful.
"If you want to succeed at being an entrepreneur, you just have to not quit, have tenacity," Travers said. "You've got to be willing to hang through the hard stuff."
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