New technology is constantly introduced in our lives but only a few manage to revolutionize the industry. The gaming industry has seen incredible growth in recent years but we haven’t seen any revolutionary changes in the gaming platforms in the last 20 years. We have heard a lot about virtual reality and augmented reality but we haven’t really seen any products that offer amazing user experience at an affordable cost. The gaming industry is about to change with the introduction of Tilt Five, which offers holographic tabletop gaming with the use of augmented reality glasses. Tilt Five truly has the potential to be a game changer for Augmented Reality (AR) gaming industry. It is a fundamentally different approach to AR then what we have seen out in the market place.
What is Augmented Reality?
The term augmented reality (AR) was attributed to researcher named Thomas Caudell from 1990. The term Augment comes from the latin word ‘Augere’, which means ‘to increase’ or ‘to add’, which is why the augmented reality technology is designed to add to our existing reality. Augmented reality also known as mixed reality, which is very different than virtual reality. Unlike virtual reality (VR), the main purpose of augmented reality (AR) is NOT to cut out the real world and transport you to another one, but rather it is to be an enhancement of your real world with a set of magical virtual objects in it. In Augmented reality, a person’s real environment is supplemented or augmented with computer generated images with motion tracking. You have already used primitive forms of AR if you have played around with Pokemon Go or iPhone’s animoji during Facetime. With AR, objects can appear on tables, information can be displayed in floating windows on your wall and graphics can be generated while tracking their motion to the user’s field of view. The AR and VR technology directly affects the perceptions and process of the human mind and it is the only technology that can deliver actual packaged experiences. The underlying technology is very powerful and feasible. It is expected that by 2025, attractive AR and VR experiences will take a common place in our lives. If done right, these technologies show incredible potential.
What is Tilt Five?
Tilt Five features augmented reality glasses that allow you to play tabletop gaming with 3D holograms. The “holograms” are projected out into the world and onto your tabletop game board. With Tilt Five, you can still see the physical world around you, which allows you to perform your normal activities (eating, drinking, etc) in the middle of playing.
How does Tilt Five work?
The Tilt Five system projects out to an actual game board, which is called retroflector. The gaming board allows the headset to be very high performance, lightweight, and comfortable with super wide (110o) field of view. The headset has dual 720p HD projectors and the glasses are polarized for stereo display. The color field sequential image projection engine is able to process images at 180 Hz with dedicated hardware image stabilization. The projection from the glasses and reflection from the game board allows the focus of the pixels to be very accurate. As a result, Tilt Five is able to keep your hand in focus next to a virtual object, which is very unique to this system. Other systems have a fixed focus, which is not able to focus on real world object and virtual objects at the same time. The main advantage of the Tilt Five gaming system is that it is very easy to use, there is no complicated calibration or setup process required, it is ready to go as soon as you put the glasses on. The glasses are also optimized for viewing distances from 10 cm (4 in.) to 2 m (6.5 ft.).
It is important to note that Tilt Five is not a standalone system as it is a USB 3.0 peripheral that relies on a PC or mobile device to act as the host platform to perform the application’s processing (compute, graphics, networking, etc.) needs. The Tilt Five hardware is used to project the holographic display on the game board. You can think of the Tilt Five hardware as a display screen for your gaming. Currently, Windows 10 and select Android devices are supported with Tilt Five.
Games included with Tilt Five
Tilt Five ships with a set of free introductory single and multiplayer games. All of the included games will work on Windows and Android devices. What is more important is that Tilt Five has secure some content partners across video games, board games, and RPG’s, as well as non-gaming applications. Tilt Five also has partnered with SmiteWorks Fantasy Grounds, which adds support for Dungeons and Dragons. The big advantage of Tilt Five is that it supports cross-platform functionality, which allows the users to play with other users on different platforms other than Tilt Five. As a result, Tilt Five has the potential to gain many users due to the compatibility with existing gaming platforms.
What is included in the box?
The system comes with the glasses, a wand controller, the game board, USB cable, a variety pack of nose pieces, and introductory games. If you wear prescription glasses, the Tilt Five glasses will work over most prescription glasses. All you need to start playing is to flip open the board, plug into a phone/tablet/PC, and slip on the glasses.
Technical Specifications
- Dual 720p HD projectors, polarized for stereo display
- 110° diagonal field of view
- 180 Hz color field sequential image projection engine
- Optimized for viewing distances from 10 cm (4 in.) to 2 m (6.5 ft.)
- Dedicated hardware image stabilization operating per-color-field at 180 Hz
- Dedicated 8MP application-accessible computer vision camera
- USB 3.1 gen 2 connectivity (USB 3.0 required on the host system)
- Supports applications running up to 60 fps
- Stereo speakers
- Microphone
- 85 grams total weight of glasses
- Bluetooth Low Energy for low latency connectivity
Who is Jeri Ellsworth?
Tilt Five augmented reality glasses are made by Jeri Ellsworth and her company. Jeri Ellsworth is a computer chip designer and inventor. Based on a technology that Jeri has been developing since she was at Valve Software, she took that technology and launched a product called CastAR (formerly Technical Illusions) in 2013. Since then Jeri has been iterating on the hardware and software to launch this new product called Tilt Five. In September 2019 Jeri Ellsworth initiated a Kickstarter for Tilt Five.
Pricing and Availability
Tilt Five is currently available on Kickstarter as a project with pledged goal of $400,000 and it has already raised $1,041,398 with 2,050 backers and 22 days to go. The pledge option for $339 USD is no longer available, which would have provided you with the following:
What’s included in the box:
- Tilt Five Glasses
- Wand
- Nose Piece Variety Pack
- USB 3 Cable
- Large Game Board (31.5″ by 31.5″ to 42″, with kickstands)
- Deluxe Box with Carrying Handle
- Introductory games pack
The good news is that Tilt Five LE kit is still available for $299 USD, which provides the same system with regular sized game board. The Tilt Five gaming system will be available in June 2020 and it will ship anywhere in the world.
In the world of gaming and technology, Tilt Five offers very unique AR experience in an easy to use package. Tilt Five is has the right blend of killer AR application and product design. With the right consumer demand, it has the potential to really revolutionize the tech and gaming industry.
Source: Kickstarter
I am officially a tech addict and enjoy providing my views on matters related to this industry. I am always interested in trying out new tech gadgets and I have owned multiple smartphones including the legendary HTC One, SGS2, Nexus 4, iPhone 4, 5S, 6S, XR, Note 9. You can ask me any tech related questions in the comment section or on twitter @hookedNav