Apple and other companies are expected to launch their own smart glasses in the near future, but until that happens you just have to be patient. Well, that or make your own like Teemu Laurila is doing. This maker has built some Smart Glasses with a simple Raspberry Pi Zero W and the help of some other element like the Raspberry Pi camera. Although what is really behind these glasses capable of recognizing gestures is a lot of talent.
Raspberry Pi Smart Glasses
The Raspberry Pi Smart Glasses are not an official product of The Raspberry Pi Foundation. Nor are they a proposal that, due to aesthetic finishes, can be up to the task of what we have already seen in the past from Google and its Google Glass or with more recent proposals such as Amazon's Echo Frame.
Still, you're smart glasses created with a Raspberry Pi Zero W by a very talented user named Laurila they are amazing. So much so that they become one of those projects that it would still be nice to carry out, especially in schools and other educational purposes.
As can be seen in the published video (Teukkaniikka YouTube channel), these Smart Glasses are a striking proposal that combines the use of a Raspberry Pi Zero W with the camera module of it and a PC with an AI that allows you to analyze everything it captures to interpret hand gestures.
That way, each gesture can be assigned a default action. For example, in those that can be seen in the video, with the pinch gesture and turning to one side or the other you can control the maximum and minimum brightness level of a lamp. Or you can simply capture the image so that the AI ​​installed on the PC analyzes it and produces a projection that is superimposed in real time so that it can be seen.
Essence maker at its best
The project carried out by Laurila is, without any doubt about it, a very effective demonstration of the enhancement of the Raspberry Pi, its new camera module, but mainly the talent of its creator and the maker essence.
These types of projects are the ones that, beyond the aesthetic or not that the solution may turn out to be, demonstrate everything that can be done today with a device like the Raspberry Pi and the appropriate knowledge. Logically, the level of miniaturization and aesthetics that a company with more resources can achieve in all aspects is unmatched, but here it is not a matter of competing in this field but of demonstrating its capabilities.
So, this may motivate you to give a push to a project that you have in mind and have not yet started. Or to see that you can try to go a little further and look for something more challenging, a real challenge like this one from Laurila with which she set out to build her own smart glasses.