Today is day 25 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.
There have been some really exciting launches in the AR/VR world lately. These are exciting times to rethink how we learn, interact, work, and find entertainment. But of course there are questions of cost, privacy, isolation, and more. For most of the world, a new AR/VR Tool probably won't be in our house any time soon. But what about the open source competition. Is it really competition or something you should be keeping your eye on? Today we're looking at Frame by Brilliant.xyz.
Community Projects
From what I can tell from their documentation and their app, the features are largely dependent on the users. Brilliant supplies the hardware and the API for both their glasses and monocle and it's up to you to decide where to take it. Some notable projects include:
- Teleprompter for Google Slides by milesprovus
- A heads up display workout app by simonevetere and jdc-cunningham
- An app to curate questions during Q&A sessions and display to AR lens by ironmanfpv
You'll notice that all of these are for their Monocle Device. Their Frame product is currently on pre-order only, shipping starting next month.
Frame is designed to be worn as a pair of glasses with a suite of AI capabilities out of the box. Whether your daily pair of specs or workbench prototyping tool, Frame is ready for the journey.
As a glasses wearer, myself, it was nice to see that they have options to fit your prescription (although my vision is so bad that they don't have an option 😭)
Open Source Advantage?
We don't see a ton of open source support over the last 30 days.
Because there doesn't seem to be one central repo, it's a little hard to judge the popularity, but throughout the repos, we see that there are only 2 contributors. So let's take a look at what they're up to in the Brilliant Repos.
Their activity overview zoomed in on the Brilliant repos shows some engagement in 5 repositories. This means there haven't been many substantial updates in any of the repositories over the last month.
Takeaways
There hasn't been a lot of movement across their open source projects, but does that mean we shouldn't watch what they're doing? No. With their new product shipping in April, it will be interesting to see if there's more activity and engagement then. There's a lot of things still coming soon with their product, including documentation. Hopefully, that will give a clearer picture of what to expect with their new releases and how to get involved in their open source projects.
Top comments (6)
FWIW, I have the Monocle (their prototype, which supports coding in MicroPython - one of the key reasons I chose to try it out). It sort of fits over my glasses, but it has mostly been something to play with rather than something I've wanted to use all the time. Brilliant Labs have been super friendly and supportive via their Discord etc and I definitely dig their ethos and approach! Keeping an eye on the Frame, but like you, my prescription makes it a bit tricky for some of these kinds of gadgets!
That’s great to know. Frame is just too expensive for me to justify to play around with at this point. What have you done with monocle?
I did some basic stuff like overlaying text - to be honest, not a lot! Understand the cost angle, too - I really need to rein in my desire for All The Toys, and play with what I already have!
Hahahah. Ah yes, the shiny new things are always so enticing.
If it was a great product, I would prefer it being fundamentally open source. Not sure I'd wear it unless it was a great product, though.
Right or if I had a very specific usecase, like I’m traveling abroad and it translates what I’m seeing into English.