The Spy Gear Night Vision Goggles generated quite a lot of interest in the wearable community since it’s basically a very low cost (~$50 USD) eyetap / wearable display. Here are some technical details on the Googles, which are basically a low cost camera and display. Great low cost way to make yourself more cyborganic. Link.
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I spoke with the writer of that message once or twice – the original post is available in the wear-hard archive at wearables.blu.org. In private correspondence, the original poster had this to add:
I haven’t done a lot with the unit. I figured out which wires were the
video signal and diverted them to a pair of RCA jacks so that I can
get the video output of the camera and send video back into the
display.
The site where I had my notes went down due to a hardware problem with
the server. I haven’t put the site back up yet, but I have some places
that can host it. Since there is apparently some interest in that
stuff, I’ll try to put the site back together over the weekend.
I’ve been having a bit of trouble finding the units for sale. Walmart
used to have them on sale online for $50, but they are out of stock
now, and Wild Planet’s homepage doesn’t list them anymore.
This was some stuff I posted to the list, which ought to provide a
good starting point for messing with the unit:
> Anyone figure out what you need to do to connect a color NTSC feed to
> one of these yet?
Yes, I did. Unfortunately, the wearhard servers ate my last mails, so
there has been a bit of a delay getting the information out.
(The reason for that being that they got taken down, apparently.)
The four-wire ribbon cable between the camera and the display
board appears to carry the following signals:
Brown: Video Signal
Red & Orange: +5 volts
Yellow: Ground
I removed the brown wire completely and attached halves of a video
cable with RCA connectors on the ends. The shield of the video cable went
to the ends of the yellow wire (ground) in the display, and the center
conductor was soldered in place where the brown wire (video signal)
used to be.
This way, I can use a RCA cable butt connector to hook the camera and
display back together, or seperate them and put a computer in the
middle.
Everything works, in that I can get video output from the camera on my
Commodore 64 monitor and can send a picture to the display from a
spare video camera. There is one small snag, though.
The entire device is built UPSIDE DOWN in relation to the wearer’s
head! The video comes out of the camera with top and bottom reversed.
The cyberdisplay is installed upside down, so everything looks right side up.
I think this was done so that the ribbon cable for the cyberdisplay
would point into the body of the device rather than off to the other
side.
sadly, i haven’t been able to find these anywhere. at all. i’ve been looking for a couple of months, and they are no where to be found.
These seem to only be available as part of a $176 bundle of five spy toys from the Wild Planet web site at:
http://www.shopwildplanet.com/prod/wptsgusbndl.html
I think that these might be available in the UK from Toys R Us. They certainly sold a range of this gear last time I was in, and it caught my eye, especially the laser tripwire gear.
Very nice gadget for those people which are always on the go. This is very useful during camping and those night outs at the wilderness. Unfortunately the company that produces them no longer manufacture these googles. Too bad.