This 16-Year-Old Made His Own Pair of TOLED Smart Glasses

Mars Kapadia's wearable device features a lens assembly that flips down for sun protection and keeps info in-view.

Jeremy Cook
5 years agoWearables

Smart glasses come in a number of forms, and while they were introduced years ago, they still haven’t become mainstream. In hopes of succeeding where other tech giants like Google have failed so far, 16-year-old Mars Kapadia decided to build his own pair for a school science fair using a SparkFun transparent OLED display, an Arduino Nano Every, and a LiPo battery. An HC-05 Bluetooth module enables it to connect to a smartphone as an entirely self-contained wireless unit.

One interesting feature of Kapadia’s E.D.I.T.H.-esque glasses is that they flip up for indoor use, then fold down to shade his eyes from the sun. The screen stays in place either way to let him view info. A lens assembly for focusing is also implemented, but was removed for the video.

Smartphone-wise, the device is powered by RetroWatch software — apparently what’s found here — which allows for adjustment of the date, notification settings, etc. It’s an impressive showcase of what can be put together with readily available part, and open source software, and something that could be enhanced with an accelerometer, ESP32, or any number of other add-ons/substitutions. A second version is reportedly on the horizon, so it will be interesting to see how this project develops!

Be sure to check it out in the video below, where Kapadia talks through the wearable's different capabilities, along with the hardware that he used.

UPDATE: Kapadia and his sub-$200 intelligent blue specs were featured in Popular Mechanics.

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
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