The parts are flowing in and I'm starting to assemble UAT's first wearable computer for student research and development. The initial stages of building the wearcomp will require a lot of tinkering and adjustment so I don't expect to have it on 8 hours a day until I'm ready to deal with software tweaks.

The system thus far consists of a VIA Nano-ITX NX12000 with 1GB of RAM. I've added a 200mW Atheros 802.11abg mini-PCI card and a Bluetooth dongle for connectivity. Storage is a 120GB WD laptop SATA drive, we'll see how long it lasts being strapped to my side. The display currently attached to the machine is a Vuzix VR920, it's definitely not meant for wearable computers, however it is an interesting display. I'll talk about why later in the post. Second from the display, the most important peripheral is the input device. We have a few different devices on the way, but until they arrive I've chosen to use a wiimote as a pointer. Batteries are on the way and should show up this week in the lab, I'm tethered to the wall for now.

All of the hardware has been mounted on two chunks of cardboard using standoffs and zip-ties, eventually acrylic will replace the cardboard. It's mounted in a thrift store waist pack, the least geeky one I could find. With the vr920 running and the CPU at 100% the whole setup takes 24W (yikes, too much!). Not too bad for the first day worth of work though. You can see the whole picture set in the wearcomp gallery.

As for the VR920 headset, I'll be replacing it with a more transparent and lightweight display. The VR920 was designed for short periods of use (<2 hours) while watching movies or playing games. While the display has a small resolution (640x48), it can scale up to 1024x768. Text is only readable at resolutions less than 800x600. The device gets very hot. It must be unplugged when the system starts and then reattached once the USB bus is active to activate the display, otherwise it sits at a black screen. Both the head-tracker and audio built into the display have very limited support in Linux. The headphones pop when the system reboots, very loudly, and the unit blocks out half my vision. While it has it's uses, the VR920 was not meant to be a primary display, especially not for a wearcomp.

I'll keep the posts coming, check out the UAT Hardware Studio Wiki for more information on the Gargoyle project.