Mira Prism aims to turn the iPhone into a mini-HoloLens for $99
Apple's imminent wave of iPhone augmented reality works on your phone's screen, using its camera to inject characters into the real world. But AR headsets are out there too, bringing that idea to life in front of your eyes. One of them costs less than you think.
The Mira Prism, coming later in 2017, is a simple headband visor that uses your iPhone to reflect 3D images right in front of your face for about $100 (roughly £75 or AU$125).
It looks like a fancy giant sun visor or a futuristic welder's mask, and it easily fits over my head. Holding a little remote, I can point at floating cartoon planets hovering near my desk.
The Los Angeles-based company, Mira, is founded by Ben Taft, Matt Stern and Montana Reed. All three are former students of USC's Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation. Mira already has funding from Will.i.am and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, among others.
The Prism uses an iPhone (sorry, no Android version for now), which pops into the headband using elastic, snapping into place. A large mirrored visor reflects the phone's stereoscopic images, turning them into floating three-dimensional, but virtual, objects. I got a demonstration at CNET's offices, and the 3D images felt convincing enough. Polygonal planets spread around me and I controlled a rocket ship using a long elastic tether that I extended and retracted using a handheld wand-remote. I made the ship take off and land on the table, with the help of an included round cardboard marker.