Solomon Rogers Talks Altergaze Tech

Solomon Rogers is creative director at RewindFX, a boutique visual-arts studio producing engaging and immersive animation, visual effects and interactive work for the company's clients.

Leading the way with a wave of new virtual reality-based content, the company recently toured its Red Bull Air Race experience across the UK and has a host of innovative projects in the works as it continues to define a new, uncharted marketing space.

One of the new pieces of tech being experimented with at Rogers’ St Albans-based office is an impressive 3D printed handheld device, Altergaze, designed to accommodate a smartphone to provide a mobile VR experience for the user and an accessible alternative to the Oculus Rift.

Below, Rogers tells us about the uniwue invention, its funding and production as well as the new opportunities it presents for brands and marketers.

Where did the idea for Altergaze come from and whose idea was it?

Altergaze was designed by a very good friend of Rewind FX, called Liviu Berechet Antoni, who we have been working with for a number of years. He went quiet for a couple of months and came back with an amazing 3D printed, Virtual Reality (VR) headset that utilises most mobile phones as the main screen and the gyroscope as the motion sensor.

He’s now taken this out to the Kickstarter community to raise funding for the first release which allows the user to get their hands on their own Altergaze as well as help fund future development of the products.

The main reason for developing the product is that the creator felt the only Virtual Reality technology available, accessible and at a consumer friendly price, was the Oculus rift, but that only comes as a development offering. This highlighted a gap in the market in as much that most people have technology capable for running virtual reality, on their person at all times.

What’s really interesting is that the idea of open source software has been applied through the movement of open source hardware, which means that the plans are free to download for non-commercial use and if you have a 3D printer, you can print yourself one out right away – this itself is completely game changing. Soon you will have no need to go to the shop to make a purchase but instead will be able to create your own unique version from your own printer.

What is the demand and how is that demand being met?

The demand for headsets like the Altergaze has been outstanding as it has already met its minimum requirement on Kickstarter and exceeded its funding figure, enabling high volumes of production. This releases large numbers to users via batches on a weekly basis. This demand will only increase and with that, the production cycles will increase as well.

Because these units aren’t being built like most hardware in a country where the labour is very cheap and the product is shipped in batches, there are no long production cycles.

When you require a unit, Altergaze will simply print and ship the item immediately. It takes two to three hours to print a device and if they need to print more, they will buy some more and print in that cycle, meaning that there are no up front costs for parts, materials and you don’t need to ‘tool’ anything.

How would someone get hold of one of the devices?

They’re now available to buy online. The first Kickstarter batches are already in production. Or if you have a 3D printer, you can get your designs from Altergaze direct and print off your headset right away.

How do you see the future for this device and similar products?

The landscape around virtual reality is becoming more exciting, evolving every day so many companies want to get involved with using it. The amount of press that the Oculus Rift is getting helps to establish the technology with brands. The headset for the Oculus Rift is a high end gaming tool niche product for high end gamers, developers and like us, high end visual art studios, using it for event-based marketing and experiential.

What the Altergaze and similar products coming out will give us is to democratise VR down to every one of us. We all have devices such as mobile phones in our pockets which will do a lot of what a VR headset does. It enables motion tracking with a high-resolution screen and by taking on a clever head mounted system with optics; it allows us to engage with VR whenever we feel like it.

The convenient aspect of using mobile is that this technology uses android and IOS phones, meaning that both of them have a great app store and user base with millions of devices everywhere so there is a very clear way to market. The content we create can be developed for iPhone and Android so we can start to offer ‘VR-Ready’ content, allowing those who have an Altergaze or similar VR product to place their phone in the unit and be transported to a fully 3D, stereo world of virtual reality.

As Altergaze is 3D printed, we are working directly to promote the simplicity of production to brands. The fact that we can make it completely customisable means that we can print bespoke units in singles or small batches and use them for either prizes or giveaways at events.

For example, one of our clients, Red Bull, would be able to take along 3D printers to events and allow people to design and customise their own headsets, which would then be printed out on site as a giveaway. This would draw attention toward the brand for the event, but also allow the delegates to take the experience away with them to share with their friends.