VUF-110 Wearable Display

I've got decades of experience with VR, drones, and various head-mounted displays and the Vufine+ is a superb low-cost option for a monocular display that allows you to still maintain LOS to your drone -- an FAA requirement that's frequently broken by scofflaws. But it's such a nice and comfortable HMD that I want to use it for so much more. I saw another reviewer claiming it's wonderful as a camera monitor and were they ever right! My Sony alpha cameras all worked flawlessly (after setting them to 'auto' resolution on the HDMI output) and it makes getting those crazy low angle kitten photos so much easier -- especially now that I'm older and can't get physically low as easily anymore. It's even better than that; I want to wear it all the time so I can watch TV while I do the chores! I don't care if I look like a Borg reject -- if it means I can do the dishes and vacuum the house while I'm watching my soaps! I will mention that the mount the Vufine+ comes with worked quite nicely for my test run, and I left it on my glasses (which are prescription frames that just happen to be identical to the ones in the box) -- then about an hour later, the rubber that holds the mount broke, spontaneously -- not even being touched, or worn, or looked at! So I sent a quick e-mail to the address on the Vufine website. I told them the mount broke almost immediately, and could I get a replacement and also maybe buy a spare or two in case the replacement also turns out to be super fragile. They wrote me back in *minutes* saying it was no problem, they'd already shipped out a replacement and a spare, gratis, and included a tracking number. Very professional! Other than the mount breaking, I don't have any real complaints. There's plenty of things that could be a little nicer, but it's an all-around good design and the low ($200 at the time of writing) price elevates it to great. I'm even tempted to buy a second one just so I'll have a spare if they someday stop being produced or go out of business. It's that good! One last thing that's not really spelled out anywhere that I could find - although it claims there is a 90-minute battery life, it works just fine plugged in so if you don't mind another cable there's no reason you can't wear it all day and watch your soaps too.

1. This doesn't fit any glasses and just slips all over because of the huge cables necessary to use the device. The screen is so small that you cannot fit a regular monitor size image. It doesn't work with Samsung. The view is so tiny that Samsung will not use it. You can never actually position the screen to be able to see it. The base that holds the screen to glasses was not build or designed for this optic. The movement does not correlate to the glasses. So when you move the brace it does not move in ways that help you view it just moves around in strange ways not related to the glasses. I would fire everyone involved in this project as it is a horrible failure.

On it's own it's an alright display, it tends to have really tiny text that may make using it normally for long periods a bit of a pain if your vision is not the greatest. I solved this by using the magnifier to make the screen 200% zoomed in, it's a little bit of a pain to have to move around the screen in little subsections, but you can then clearly read all the text and work all the controls. I'm using this with a mini pc stick (Recommend getting the 8gb ram fanless one as then you can stick it in a waterproof bag but still leave it running) to make a super lightweight computer for backpacking that runs entirely off solar power. This monitor works very will with that because it has enormously less power draw than other solutions and is super lightweight. You can also easily slip it into a plastic bag to make it rainproof. For regular life I find it just a tad frustrating to use for a couple of reasons. For one, it only comes in a right eye version, and I prefer it on my left eye, so after you adjust the windows 10 settings to invert the screen, the cords now poke upwards instead of hanging down neatly. The internal battery life is quite short, about an hour or so for me, so you will want to keep it plugged into power while using it. I use an external battery bank stuffed in a pocket for this. Despite it's limitations, it is an excellent piece of gear for adapting to the new work from anywhere world. Highly recommend for it's special camping and outdoors usage, not a terribly pleasant experience for a casual office user.

Much of my disappointment is due to my own expectations for what this product might have been able to do. Perhaps I can help prevent someone else from suffering the same fate. First, when properly mounted, it's very easy for the wired setup to adjust the orientation of the viewfinder on the glasses provided. The attachment between the viewer part and the eyeglass attachment part is very flimsy. Turn your head or perhaps move your arms to type, if you bump the wiring, you are no longer looking at the screen. This is because the actual viewfinder part connects to the eyeglass attachment via a small, weak magnet that is easy to bump out of place or reorient. Next, as advertised, when using with a smartphone, you are literally seeing the entire face of your phone. While the resolution is really excellent, everything is very small. So, watching video or your camera is nice; but notes, text messages, or Kindle, not so much. It's as if you were to hold your phone 6' away and try to read texts from that distance. This was a big disappointment, as I had pictured myself reading on a plane or as a passenger in a car. I did find Netflix or YouTube video quality to be very good with Vufine. However, my iPhone will not both use the digital TV output to Vufine AND the iPhone's own speakers or BlueTooth audio at the same time. Meaning, I would have to add even more wires by plugging a wired headset into the Lighting>Digital AV connector. This is not ideal. This really is a "must improve" situation for Vufine to be reasonably viable for anything other than drone FPV. When taking pictures with my iPhone, the viewer works well in Portrait mode. But, if I rotate the phone to Landscape, the viewer stays in Portrait but at a 90-degree angle. I wold imagine the same would happen with a digital camera. I can say, if one's sole use for Vufine is to FPV drone flights, Vufine may be useful for that purpose. You wouldn't need sound and the picture is decent.

This is a very unique product and it has plenty of faults. But it’s closest competition is over double the cost. People are using this for a few different reasons and you’ll need to consider what yours are. But I wanted to be able to walk and watch training videos at same time. I haven’t used the product for that yet but I have used it a few hours and here’s my thoughts. The seller really needs to be clear what the ports are on the unit. It does not have any wireless capability. It includes all cables but if you replace them, be aware no full size ports are on the device itself. None of the technology is current so connecting to anything new is going to require adapters. The full size end of the cables are hdmi and standard usb. The USB port is only for charging or powering the device. You can adapt this to whatever you are connecting to or replace the cable. To replace for a new iPhone you’ll need a usb c to mini hdmi cable. The thinner the cable is the happier you’ll be since it dangles from your face. The usb is the micro usb I think. It’s the standard one on older android devices. I didn’t test battery life but if you need more than 90 minutes, you can power the device with the usb cable while using it. Once connected, the video is very clear. The manufacturer claims you get about a 4” view. In either case the view through the optics appear larger than the device physically is. I can read text on YouTube videos. Getting the frame into your field of view is not easy. You need to be looking directly into the lens but most of the attachments leave the view a little diagonal. That causes the image to go left under the lens and it cuts off the left side of the display. There is no adjustment for this besides physically moving the device. If using glasses, they hold the device further right and the problem is worse. Most likely people not experiencing this are not wearing glasses or have thinner heads. Also if your prescription magnifies, the problem is exaggerated. I am farsighted and the magnification was driving me crazy trying to adjust. Oddly enough, I used the included glasses and I could see the image clearly even though the gadget was inches from my eyes. The optics have you looking far past the physical Device and somehow it works and I could see without prescription glasses. I didn’t have trouble attaching the unit to my glasses but adjusting was tedious and I couldn’t get the whole frame in my view. Be aware that pushing the bottom half of the power button will switch the view. One will make the view smaller which will help bring things into view if needed. The best option is not to use glasses at all but that requires parts not included or building your own. Over all I can do the solution with included glasses okay. I watched a few YouTube videos and I think it will work for me. The attachment that adjusts least worked best for me too. This has lots of room for improvement but there is no competition that I am willing to pay for. For that, this gets a 4 star from me.

I bought this as a kind of experiment. I'm an illustrator/ painter and I work from photo references, or 3D model programs. I found this to be a great tool/ time saver while I work. Normally i'll have my computer with my references set up on the side and whatever my canvas is in front of me. Sometimes its a nuisance to have to turn my head so much to look at the reference and by the time I turn back to my work I have lost the specific spot I was concentrating on. The beautiful thing about the vufine display is that I can keep my eye exactly where I'm working and then just shift focus onto the reference. I've gotten pretty quick at it, and it prevents my neck from getting exhausted! One of the mounts it comes with allows you to pretty much position it anywhere you need high/low/left/right, and that helps with comfort and the position I sit in ( I can be looking down on a page and look up at the reference, or up at a canvas and look down for the reference) haven't had the chance to use it for sculpture yet, but I can see it being a huge benefit. When I draw comic books its also a really nice feature to be able to read the script/character descriptions while I rough in a page. This has given me an idea to use it as I obnoxiously sing songs while I work so my girlfriend gets annoyed. I can look up any Chumbawamba song and read the lyrics as I dance. Maybe this would be good for actors on set rehearsals or musicals? It's nice that it comes with prescriptionless glasses, but they are pretty small. I have a small head and they fit pretty snug.

It has terrible reviews for a reason but I wanted to give this one a shot for myself. In theory it seems like a great gadget. Practically it just isn’t there yet. It uses magnets to stick to the sides of your eyeglasses. It’s pretty heavy so you’ll feel it on your face and the plastic strap starting to rip within the first day. The device came dead so I had to charge. Took about 2 hours to fully reach 100. Once I started using it there is a few things you need to note. (I have an iphone11 for context) Since the lighting adapter port is connected, you will need Bluetooth headphones to play sound. You’ll hear nothing from the phone or the device. Two, the device is literally mirroring your phone so if you want to actually see what’s on the screen, you need to be in horizontal viewing mode on your phone. Everything is much smaller when you look at your phone vertically. Last but not least it’s extremely uncomfortable watching anything in one eye. It’s just not how depth perception works. You’ll find yourself with watery eyes and squinting. Final: it’s not worth the money. it would have been really cool if it was but same yourself the time and energy. if you are like me and are going to get this anyway, take all my tips to heart and return it when you realize I was speaking the truth

If you are just using this for just video, it is outstanding. It works best out of the sunlight, and I was surprised about how well the video looks. I bought this to use with my iPhone and had the approved Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter listed on their website. The issue is that with the adapter, the iPhone audio wants to go through the HDMI, and since there isn't a headphone jack on the Vufine, you can't hear audio unless you use Bluetooth headphones synced with your iPhone. That would be fine, but in practice, it is not fine. I tried two different iPhones: an iPhone SE (8) on iOS 15.3.1 and an iPhone 12 on iOS 15.3. Nearly 80% of the time, it's a real hassle to switch the audio from HDMI to Bluetooth. It either doesn't want to switch, or when it does switch, and you can finally hear the audio in your Bluetooth, the video output freezes while the sound continue to play. This mostly happens on any video you use with mobile Safari (like YouTube.com) or when using the VLC app. I think this is mostly an Apple issue and not an issue with the Vufine, but since it shows up on their compatibility list, that's why I bought it and this issue is why I am returning it. Also, and this is somewhat unrelated, but there are many apps out there, like Peacock, that do not allow HDMI output using this lightning to HDMI adapter. So if you are trying to buy this to watch the Peacock streaming, it will not work. This is a NBC issue and not a Vufine problem, but I should have checked all the apps for HDMI output ahead of time. There are apparently many that do not work, so my advice would be to buy the HDMI adapter, connect it to a monitor, and test your apps before you buy this. In closing I really wish this had a headphone jack on it, because that would resolve my issue, though it would need an audio amp and that would likely eat into the battery life.