BT-300 Drone Edition May Be 'Killer App,' Giving Pilots First-Person View While They Keep an Eye on Their UAVs

Epson says its new drone goggles, shipping later this month, will let drone pilots use first-person views from their cameras without breaking line-of-sight with their UAVs. 

The company is preparing to ship its Moverio BT-300 augmented reality (AR) "smart glasses," which will come in a standard Developer Edition ($779) as well as a Drone Edition ($799) pre-loaded with DJI's DJI Go app for viewing the live camera feed from DJI's UAVs.

"Now in our sixth year in the AR eyewear space, Epson's Moverio platform has driven interest and sales increases exponentially year after year," said Epson America's New Ventures product manager, Eric Mizufuka, in a prepared statement. "We're especially excited to be partnered with DJI to make flying a safer and more productive experience. We firmly believe that UAV is our killer application."

Being able to see the first-person view while looking directly at the airborne drone is critical for pilots due to requirements from the FAA that drone pilots maintain visual line-of-sight with their vehicles at all times.

The Moverio is based around Epson's proprietary silicon-based Si-OLED display technology, along with a 5 megapixel front-facing camera and other sensors. The operating system is Android 5.1, running on a quad-core Intel Atom X5 processor. Clip-on shades are available for use in sunlight, and the unit includes fasteners that can affix the Moverio controller to a DJI Phantom or Inspire phone mount.

According to the e-store at prelaunch.com, BT-300 Developer Editions will ship within 10 business days of the order. The BT-300 Drone Edition is scheduled to ship "mid-late January 2017."

Epson Moverio: epson.com