E-Reader Goggles Are Being Produced By This Company, Allowing Users To Read Without Ever Holding A Kindle

Electronic paper, a long-time mainstay of electronic book readers, is now beginning to broaden its use, making its way into tablets, watches, and even automobiles thanks to a new partnership between E Ink and BMW at CES.

But an even crazier electronic paper-based gadget was also shown at CES: the Sol Reader, a wearable e-reader that you can put on your face.

Electronic paper has some technical drawbacks that prevent it from being used as a universal replacement for LCDs and OLEDs. You definitely don’t want an E-Ink TV hanging in your living room. Nevertheless, its technical benefits, such as low power consumption and an eye-friendly reflective screen, make it perfect for everything from e-readers to e-notes. Even the new colour types of electronic paper weren’t something we were anticipating seeing in a pair of goggles.

The goggles form factor has mostly been used up to this point for wearable technologies that combine augmented reality, virtual reality, or both, and use two displays to immerse users in 3D environments or experiences. The future of the gadgets we still carry around in our pockets is undoubtedly wearables, but the Sol Reader isn’t meant to take the place of smartphones. Instead, e-readers are the goal.

Brad Lynch of YouTube’s SadlyItsBradley channel got to get some hands-on time with a prototype of the Sol Reader at CES last week and shared their observations in a video. The gadget has few details on its official website. The less-than-100-gram goggles have the appearance and feel of a lightweight pair of virtual reality goggles (you can’t see anything around you while wearing them), but they have electronic paper displays hidden behind a set of pancake lenses instead of virtual reality technology.

The Sol Reader lets customers read rather than presenting them with 3D interactive virtual worlds. When wearing the goggles while lying down, which is reportedly the optimum use case since the Sol Reader doesn’t have a head strap, you’ll see what seems to be a book page floating in a black vacuum in front of you or above you. With the usage of e-paper screens, battery life is predicted to be close to 30 hours, and page flipping is controlled by a wireless handheld remote.

Lynch briefly shows off the device’s displays in the video, which sadly seems frustratingly low-res. However, Lynch notes that the team behind it has been in contact with E Ink about finding a solution with higher resolution. This is crucial since it’s anticipated that the Sol Reader will retail for a whopping $350 at some point this year. It’s difficult to envision someone spending so much money on the wearable if the reading experience isn’t even near to what a Kindle offers when the Meta Quest 2 is just $50 more and has a wide variety of e-book reading applications available for it.