The AV310 Widescreen Headset

The actual AV310 Widescreen Headset is not a pretty thing. It is not ugly per se, but more along the lines of awkward and kind of goofy. My wife's first comment was "you look like a real geek now". This was followed by a few amusing comments from my kids that are not suitable for publication.

When you first look at them you get the impression that they will feel heavy on your face and you would be right. They also feel very clumsy. This is mostly due to the way the arms are designed. Vuzix meant them to be able to tilt the display head so that it can sit in the best viewing position on different users faces. However, what ended up happening is that the arms tend to bend slightly at random and all of the stability control ends up being on the sides of your nose.

Taking a look at the display head, you can see the nose piece is very small and made of thin metal. There are pads on the side but they are not much help during extended use. There are two lenses on either side of the nose piece. Each of these can be individually adjusted to suit your eyesight. It is unfortunate that they cannot be adjusted for width, but I think that would overcomplicate the display head and add more weight.

The arms are not much better here and simply extend straight back with only a slight curve to them for comfort. There are also a pair of removable ear-bud style head phones to allow for a private experience.

Under the left hand arm is a cable that extends out of the battery compartment/control unit. This is a small cylindrical piece that holds the single AA battery needed to power the AV310. There are buttons for power, stop and volume up and down. This is also where you would plug in the connectivity adapter for your device.

For Apple devices you use the standard iPod connector. On the back of this is a mini-USB port. This allows you to charge your iPod/Phone while using the Vuzix AV310.

One problem we ran into right away was our inability to use this with our Otterbox Defender for iPhone case. The connector for the iPhone/iPod is simply too bulky to fit. In the end we had to remove the iPhone from the case to use the AV310.

For most other devices a standard Video + stereo component connector is used.