Covestro and North join forces for the development of smart glasses

North, a Canada-based start-up in Augmented Reality (AR), has launched the first commercial smart glasses called Focals that look like everyday glasses with the help of Covestro.

The company says one of the many challenges with developing such complex devices is not sacrificing form factor for functionality, thus maintaining the appearance of standard glasses.

Covestro’s Bayfol HX products offer cutting edge solutions to enable high performing yet design-appealing smart glass products.

Covestro has been the strategic supplier of tailored materials for North’s diffractive optical solutions, since the inception of Focals. 

“North is engaging with Covestro in development efforts involving the use of certain Covestro customised photopolymer films, to obtain excellent optical performance and outstanding cosmetic appearance in see through AR applications on North devices,” said Stefan Alexander, Vice President, Advanced R&D at North. 

A challenge with all mobile computing platforms is battery life, which Covestro’s photopolymer helps maximise.

Dr. Friedrich-Karl Bruder, Head of Application Development Holographic LightGuiding at Covestro, explained: "In mobile applications where battery life is decisive, low energy consuming devices can be realised with Bayfol HX film. This is due to the distinct feature of volume holograms recorded into our film that allows a high diffraction efficiency for light guiding and light redirection which can be tuned to almost 100 percent.”