The Premise. At life’s most breathtaking and exhilarating moments, you want to be able to focus on the now, not worrying about opening up the camera on your phone or tinkering with the settings of your DSLR. You want to capture the moment with your own eyes, and have a picture worthy of the remnants of that memory.
The Product. The Panvu 3D glasses are lightweight and sporty while boasting three integrated 15 megapixel cameras. By taking dual images, it can create 3D panoramic photos that capture even more than what the eyes can see. The images taken with the glasses can be sent directly to your smart phone via Bluetooth where their app (available for both iOS and Android users) creates a 3D panorama at the with a single tap. It can also shoot video in HD 1080p at 30 fps, with 8GB of memory and a 60 minute battery life.
The Pitch. The pitch video is a sequence of transitions between slides explaining the features of the Panvu 3D glasses, and beautiful landscapes of people taking life by the horns. However, it’s unclear if these photos were actually taken with the glasses, and some of them even look like generic stock photos. But even if you do put on your “Suspension of Disbelief” glasses for those photos, it’s concerning that nowhere on the page or the video is there a person actually wearing the glasses. The glasses run the risk of looking bulky and perhaps even being uncomfortable. Their pitch doesn’t mention anything that would dismiss those concerns.
The Perks. The standard 8GB glasses can be bought with a pledge of $110. That includes the Panvu 3D Glasses, interchangeable anaglyphic 3D glasses, hard case, remote, soft tissue, and an 8GB memory card. For an extra $20, you can get a 16GB memory card instead, but the real deal is the $150 pledge that will land you the Panvu 3D Extended Edition glasses with nearly triple the battery life.
The Potential. Whether their goal is reached or not, all pledgers will receive their Panvu 3D glasses since this is an Indiegogo Flexible Fund campaign. That’s reassuring considering they’re asking for $100,000 over the course of one month. The glasses themselves are an interesting competitor to something like the GoPro or Looxcie HD wearable imaging camera. They may be able to give a better point-of-view perspective since they are integrated with the natural field of vision with potentially less bulk. But as mentioned earlier, the quality of the experience, as well as those of the images, will be tough to convey without head-on experience.