When comparing Carl Zeiss Smart Glass vs CastAR, the Slant community recommends Carl Zeiss Smart Glass for most people. In the question“What are the best smart glasses?” Carl Zeiss Smart Glass is ranked 5th while CastAR is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Carl Zeiss Smart Glass is:
Instead of shining light directly into your eyes, the light simply reflects off the glass, meaning its less obtrusive.
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Pros
Pro Reflective display
Instead of shining light directly into your eyes, the light simply reflects off the glass, meaning its less obtrusive.
Pro Adaptable technology
The technology used in the Carl Zeiss Smart Glasses project can be transferred to normal glasses, or wherever curved glass is present. This solves the fundamental issue with Google Glass, which required an out-of-place flat piece of glass to function.
Pro Low-profile
The glasses look very much like regular, non-smart glasses.
Pro Projection reality
In addition to augmented reality (overlaying digital elements over the real world) and virtual reality (fully digital experience), CastAR is introducing projection reality in a new way. Projection reality projects light onto reflective surfaces and back to a sensor. The projection actually appears to be in the real-world as that is where the light is coming from. It appears like a hologram, except its only visible to you.
Pro Reduced nausea in VR mode
The quick response time (8.3ms) and 120Hz refresh rate combined with accurate tracking (to 0.07mm) make for a much less nauseating experience than some other VR solutions. Nausea is at least in part caused by a delay between physical movement and interpreted movement (your body has calibrated itself to a very specific delay from when you move your head to when your view is different. VR has some delay, which extends this delay and confuses the brain).
Cons
Con Hardware only (for now)
Carl Zeiss is a company that makes optics, and doesn't work on software. This is only a hardware solution, with no software implementation yet. Currently Carl Zeiss is seeking a software partner, however this will take time for them to develop a complete product once they do find a suitable partner.
Con Not yet available
These glasses are currently in prototype stage. It's not clear when and even if they will go into production.
Con Not available yet
This is currently expected to launch sometime in 2017.