Augmented reality is an industry on the verge of changing how humans interact with the digital world. But like any technological shift in human interaction, there is a major hurdle in consumer comfort and actually adopting the tech. Usually, this perception of “new” takes either time or a popular brand pushing the perception in normalcy. Smartphones were at one point awkward to use in the presence of others because so much data was available at one’s fingertips. Cell phones were strange before that. Cost is another driver in mass adoption. The best tech takes time, not only to be created, but also to fall into a price point that consumers can pay without worry.

AR is in this awkward phase. The goal, and where the evolution hits its mass adoption phase is when a user can put on AR glasses that don’t appear any different than a normal pair. The tech isn’t small enough yet, and not of high enough fidelity, for most people to be fine wearing them in public. There’s a necessary threshold in features and size that will push users to adopt glasses over their current smartphones. In the meantime, there needs to be a device that gets users comfortable with AR features without forcing them to wear it on their faces.

Google Glass had too few features for people to want to adopt it, and there was a stigma around having a camera always possibly active. Pokemon Go was most peoples’ first interaction with AR content, but even that is a “fake” experience. A phone still has a standard screen and therefore is overlaying digital content over a digital interpretation of a real environment. The experience needs to be pushed further and have more features. Magic Leap is still a mystery for many. Even if you’re in the tech world, you’d be wondering what’s happening at the company leading the charge in bringing AR to the mainstream. What they’ve created is not even close to what most people would take out of the house, though showcasing the best AR experiences.

Devices like Microsoft Hololens were created for the enterprise market. Devices like the Lenovo AR HMD was created for home experiences. These devices have a very targeted consumer because the technologies that enable augmented reality to thrive are not small enough to overcome the problems with social boundaries in public spaces. Asking consumers to leave their homes with a piece of technology strapped to their face is still a difficult market situation. BUT, we still want to get consumers excited about the possibilities about how ubiquitous AR can be in merging home, the office, and everywhere in between.

While companies like Magic Leap and Microsoft hone their tech and make it smaller, there needs to be a device that has their level of AR content richness, without the form factor. A casual device that shows future adopters the power of overlaying digital content over the real world. A device like Portal.

There’s a whole digital world over-top the one we live in. It’s filled with extraordinary things that have the potential to drastically change how we interact with the real world. Portal was inspired by a common device used to find what previously couldn’t be seen: To uncover what was previously hidden.

Portal is a peripheral. Data is sent from it to a user’s phone via a dedicated wi-fi channel, interpreted, and back to Portal. The ways of interacting with Portal are speech via a microphone and modifying image opacity via the dedicated scroll wheel.

Portal was designed to be a tool for investigation. As a tool, it should be brought out when needed, do its job, and be put back; ready for its next task.

Home improvements, like wall mounting a TV, can be made much easier by leveraging photogrammetry during the construction process. Pulling up schematics with portal would open up a wall and show all of the layers underneath, thus showing exactly where the wall studs and wiring are located.

Low hanging fruit in augmented reality is way finding, but doing real time updates in dedicated apps like Lyft could help users safely find which car they’re getting into.

True augmented reality is when the digital content tweaks the appearance of real world objects. What if a user is trying on clothes and only needs to bring one option into a dressing room, but can still see all of the available colors?

Portal can be plugged into a phone’s USB-C port for easy syncing, charging, and enhanced features that can be done with the phone’s touch screen.

Along with the device itself, a charging mat would be available with spots for both Portal and a user’s phone because the two devices work together.