 This crazy thing that's mounted on my face is the Avagant Glyph headset. It's literally blasting 720p HD video directly into my retinas. And you know what? It's pretty ridiculous looking. And to tell the truth, it's kind of uncomfortable. And you know what else? It's pretty awesome. The Glyph is a headset that we've seen knocking around the Kickstarter world for a little while now. And now it's finally available for the not at all low price of $699. The basic idea is simple. Take what looks like an oversized pair of Beats headphones and then embed a screen in the headband. Flip the sucker down over your eyes and bam, you've got instant personal cinema. But you should know what the Glyph is not before you understand what it actually is. It is not a VR headset. Sure it can do some head tracking, but that's not really what it's for. Also it's not really as 100% immersive as an actual VR headset. You could look above and below it so you can grab a drink if there's someone sitting at a table in front of you. What the Glyph is really for is putting a giant screen right in front of your eyes. It feels about the equivalent of a 50 or 60 inch TV in a standard living room. You can use it to watch anything that you can plug into it via standard HDMI cable. I've used it to watch TV, movies, YouTube on my iPhone via an adapter, and to play a hell of a lot of Far Cry Primal on my Xbox One. Avagon says that the battery lasts about four hours and that's almost precisely what I got time and again in my testing. You could also just use it plugged in all the time. It uses micro USB to charge. I really feel like the perfect place to use the Glyph is on a plane. You could watch movies or even use your laptop and nobody can see what you're looking at. And since you're already on a plane, you don't have to worry quite so much about looking like a weirdo. The Glyph works by shining a light on a couple million micro mirrors, which then reflect the image directly into your sockets through two tiny adjustable lenses. And honestly, you're going to be doing a lot of adjustment with this thing when you get started. There's seven or eight little fiddly knobs or switches that you need to move around to get the image to look just right and to make the Glyph feel comfortable on your head. There's swappable nose bridges, rotating eye pieces to match your vision on each eye, and there's even an optional headband if it weighs too much. You can also adjust the brightness, but there's only three settings and even the lowest setting is way too bright. I have this giant rectangular square after image in my vision after I take the headset off. All that adjustment is a lot of work and if you get it right, it's actually amazing. But 15 minutes later, it may have fallen down on your face a little bit or you may find it's too heavy or you may find that you have this giant bruise looking thing on your nose from wearing it for too long. Here's the thing though. Once you get all those adjustments dialed in, you'll see something very cool. A crisp, bright HD video or a video game. It doesn't feel low res or jagged like most of the stuff that you see in like Google Cardboard or in Gear VR. It just looks like HD TV right in your face with actually really good audio pumping into your ears. Is it all worth 700 bucks? Almost surely not. But if the next version weighs half as much and costs half as much, well, color me interested, no matter how crazy it looks.
 This crazy thing that's mounted on my face is the Avagant Glyph headset.
 It's literally blasting 720p HD video directly into my retinas.
 And you know what?
 It's pretty ridiculous looking.
 And to tell the truth, it's kind of uncomfortable.
 And you know what else?
 It's pretty awesome.
 The Glyph is a headset that we've seen knocking around the Kickstarter world for a little
 while now.
 And now it's finally available for the not at all low price of $699.
 The basic idea is simple.
 Take what looks like an oversized pair of Beats headphones and then embed a screen in
 the headband.
 Flip the sucker down over your eyes and bam, you've got instant personal cinema.
 But you should know what the Glyph is not before you understand what it actually is.
 It is not a VR headset.
 Sure it can do some head tracking, but that's not really what it's for.
 Also it's not really as 100% immersive as an actual VR headset.
 You could look above and below it so you can grab a drink if there's someone sitting at
 a table in front of you.
 What the Glyph is really for is putting a giant screen right in front of your eyes.
 It feels about the equivalent of a 50 or 60 inch TV in a standard living room.
 You can use it to watch anything that you can plug into it via standard HDMI cable.
 I've used it to watch TV, movies, YouTube on my iPhone via an adapter, and to play a
 hell of a lot of Far Cry Primal on my Xbox One.
 Avagon says that the battery lasts about four hours and that's almost precisely what I got
 time and again in my testing.
 You could also just use it plugged in all the time.
 It uses micro USB to charge.
 I really feel like the perfect place to use the Glyph is on a plane.
 You could watch movies or even use your laptop and nobody can see what you're looking at.
 And since you're already on a plane, you don't have to worry quite so much about looking
 like a weirdo.
 The Glyph works by shining a light on a couple million micro mirrors, which then reflect
 the image directly into your sockets through two tiny adjustable lenses.
 And honestly, you're going to be doing a lot of adjustment with this thing when you get
 started.
 There's seven or eight little fiddly knobs or switches that you need to move around to
 get the image to look just right and to make the Glyph feel comfortable on your head.
 There's swappable nose bridges, rotating eye pieces to match your vision on each eye, and
 there's even an optional headband if it weighs too much.
 You can also adjust the brightness, but there's only three settings and even the lowest setting
 is way too bright.
 I have this giant rectangular square after image in my vision after I take the headset
 off.
 All that adjustment is a lot of work and if you get it right, it's actually amazing.
 But 15 minutes later, it may have fallen down on your face a little bit or you may find
 it's too heavy or you may find that you have this giant bruise looking thing on your nose
 from wearing it for too long.
 Here's the thing though.
 Once you get all those adjustments dialed in, you'll see something very cool.
 A crisp, bright HD video or a video game.
 It doesn't feel low res or jagged like most of the stuff that you see in like Google Cardboard
 or in Gear VR.
 It just looks like HD TV right in your face with actually really good audio pumping into
 your ears.
 Is it all worth 700 bucks?
 Almost surely not.
 But if the next version weighs half as much and costs half as much, well, color me interested,
 no matter how crazy it looks.