Created by Unistellar, one of the top pioneers in smart telescope technology, the Envision smart binoculars promise to revolutionize how we explore the Earth and the skies above.
Now available to preorder on Kickstarter, these binoculars offer an exciting insight into the development of the augmented reality landscape. These smart binoculars combine some of the popular features of AR smart glasses, with a fully functional set of professional-grade binoculars.
The binoculars leverage premium optics from Nikon, with x10 magnification and a 50-mm diameter. Plus, they include an in-built augmented reality precision orientation system. This means your binoculars can overlay valuable information on top of the right eyepiece, augmenting your natural field of view with insights into what you’re looking at.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Envision smart binoculars.
What are the Envision Smart Binoculars?
The Envision smart binoculars are a new set of augmented-reality-enhanced binoculars created to transform how people see the world around them and explore the night skies. They’re similar to the AX Visio smart binoculars introduced by Swarovski Optik earlier this year.
However, while the AX Visio binoculars focus on identifying birds, and wildlife, Unistellar’s solution goes a step further. These binoculars can identify more than a million hills, peaks, and mountains, as well as hundreds of thousands of trails, caves, springs, shelters, and more.
There’s also more than a thousand astronomical targets to check out, when you’re using your binoculars at night, and the device can also identify over 200,000 stars.
This isn’t the first time Unistellar has experimented with “smart telescopic” technology. Since 2014, the company has been reinventing the telescope, introducing various tools that automate the process of finding and photographing objects like planets and stars.
The Envision Smart Binoculars will take Unistellar’s product portfolio to the next level, giving users a tool they can take with them easily on any adventure for both day and nighttime exploration.
According to Unistellar, the precision augmented reality orientation system is even available to access with or without an internet connection. During the day, you can discover every region of the world with a system that acts as an inbuilt outdoor guide. At night, you’ll be able to explore and identify stars with the ease of a professional astronomer.
Already, these smart binoculars have earned a lot of attention. Within 15 minutes of going live on Kickstarter, Unistellar’s campaign had earned over 1,000 backers, and $675,000 in funding.
The Envision Smart Binoculars: Specs and Price
Currently, the Envision smart binoculars aren’t available to purchase on Unistellar’s website. They were exclusively available to preorder from Kickstarter until the end of July 2024. However, Unistellar will likely be selling them worldwide after initial campaign backers receive their orders.
On Kickstart, super early bird pledges could access the binoculars for as little as $599 – about half of the expected retail cost. When the binoculars go live on Unistellar’s store (expected to be some time around the end of 2025), you’ll pay around $1,200 for the device itself. Plus, there’ll be a few extra accessories available, like solar filters and a mount adapter.
Kickstarter backers also got a free lifetime subscription to Unistellar’s night sky and terrestrial database. However, it’s uncertain whether you’ll need to pay for this as a general consumer.
When it comes to technical specifications, Unistellar was initially a little quiet about what customers could expect from the binoculars. However, now, they’ve revealed a full specs list:
- 10x magnification power
- 50mm diameter lenses
- Porro architecture
- 5 hours of battery life
- 6-degree field of view
- 5mm exit pupil diameter
- Optical glass multi-layered BAC4
- Weight: 1.2kg
The Envision Smart Binoculars: Exploration Modes
Unistellar’s new binoculars are a world apart from the solutions you might be used to as an avid birdwatcher or hiking pro. The smart system built into the device connect to an associated app, giving you access to endless features and updates, as well as four modes, intended for different use cases. The modes include:
- Smart Scouting mode: During the day, users can add a 3D map to their vision, with water sources, trails, landmarks, and other points of interest. This functionality is extremely impressive, using inertial measurement units and Bluetooth pairing with your smartphone to generate precise GPS location and positioning information. You can also access real-time azimuth and altitude data in AR-enhanced view.
- Guided navigation mode: The guided navigation mode does pretty much what you’d expect during daytime use. You can use Unistellar’s app to ask the binocular to direct you to specific points of interest. Plus, the app can also make suggestions on locations to visit based on your time and location. It can even suggest celestial objects of interests to view at night.
- Classic optical mode: If you run out of battery when using your smart binoculars or want to switch off the AR features, you can still use them as a standard set of binoculars. You’ll still be able to zoom in on objects wherever they are in the world, without AR insights.
- Target sharing mode: The last mode allows users to lock onto distant objects, such as a star, an animal, or a specific point of interest, and share them with their friends. Just identify the object you want to focus on with your app, and the binoculars will guide your friends to wherever you want them to look.
The Optics and Augmented Reality Experience
Unistellar has clearly gone above and beyond to create a product unlike anything else on the market today. If you were impressed by the AX Visio binoculars mentioned above, then the Envision smart binoculars are really going to blow you away.
First, you’ll get the incredible experience you would expect from a company that partnered with Nikon on the development of the ideal lenses for binocular exploration. You get a set of top-of-the-range lenses and prisms, which consistently produce sharp, clear images. You can also equip your binoculars with a pair of solar filters, if you want to check out eclipses or sunspots safely.
Then, you get the option to tap into augmented reality experiences throughout your adventure. The right-hand side of the binoculars has its own built-in augmented reality projection system, which can be switched on and off with a simple button press.
Not only does this AR system give you access to features like “detailed information mode”, so you can learn more about the objects you’re seeing in your field of view, but it helps you automatically lock in on objects of interest. Plus, the AR system uses a high-contrast, high-brightness micro screen, to ensure the information imposed on your surroundings is clear, regardless of light conditions.
Using the Envision Smart Binoculars
Unistellar’s smart binoculars need to be connected to your smartphone at all times, similar to many types of AR glasses. However, they don’t need a wired connection. They’ll link to your phone via Bluetooth. That’s great in my opinion – fewer wires are always better for immersive experiences.
After connecting to your device, the binoculars will use its GPS, and other sensors to identify your location. The Envision app also feeds the binoculars the information from Unistellar’s online databases, featuring millions of cartographic items, like trails, landmarks, galaxies, and stars.
Notably, if you do want access to those online databases when you’re exploring areas with limited connectivity options, you can download maps and data to your phone in advance.
Using Unistellar’s app, you can select a galaxy, or a specific trail, and the Envision binoculars will guide you to exactly where it is, with step-by-step instructions. As you’re viewing the world around you, the binoculars will recognize and highlight points of interest.
They can tell you the names, distances, altitudes, and magnitudes of different objects. You can even use these binoculars to zoom in on the moon, and get exact insights into where Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the surface. It’s an extremely clever experience.
Plus, it’s worth noting that Unistellar is planning on continuously updating the binoculars, and their companion app with new data and features. Every user who buys the binoculars, and downloads the app will get access to free lifetime updates for their system.
The Outlook for Unistellar’s Binoculars
Already, Unistellar has achieved amazing success in the “smart telescope” space. Their first intelligent telescope earned more than 2,000 backers, prompting the company to create four other high-quality options, all with their own AR capabilities and database access.
Still, this is the first time Unistellar has converted its technology into such a portable device. The Envision smart binoculars also introduce a very new concept to the world of augmented reality. These binoculars are very different to the AX Visio binoculars mentioned above.
Those binoculars could tell you exactly what kind of bird you were looking at, drawing information from a database of 9,000 species. However, the Envision binoculars offer so much more information about a huge range of landscapes and objects.
In addition, Unistellar’s binoculars are set to be much cheaper than Swarvoski’s alternative. They’ll retail for about $1,199, while Swarvoski’s binoculars are closer to $4,000.
Ultimately, it’s difficult to know whether this new device will make Unistellar the leader in AR binocular technology or not. After all, the official release date for the device is still quite far away. However, I think this new product is a great insight into how rapidly AR solutions are evolving.
In the years ahead, we could find ourselves experimenting with everything from smart binoculars and smart glasses, to AR contact lenses.
