Epson

Epson
Information
Type	Public (Seiko Epson Corporation, TSE: 6724)
Industry	Electronics, Augmented Reality
Founded	1942 (as Daiwa Kogyo, Ltd.); Seiko Epson Corporation name adopted 1985
Founder	Hisao Yamazaki
Headquarters	Suwa, Nagano, Japan
Products	Moverio smart glasses, printers, projectors, Si-OLED microdisplays, robots
Website	https://corporate.epson

Epson, formally Seiko Epson Corporation, is a Japanese electronics company best known in the Augmented Reality field for its Moverio line of see-through Smart glasses. The company is headquartered in Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, and traces its roots to Daiwa Kogyo, Ltd., a watch-parts maker founded there in May 1942 by Hisao Yamazaki. The modern Seiko Epson Corporation was formed in November 1985 through the merger of Suwa Seikosha and the Epson Corporation, and the firm is part of the broader Seiko group. Outside of Augmented Reality, Epson is one of the world's largest makers of inkjet and other printers, projectors, scanners, industrial robots, and semiconductor components.

The "Epson" brand name comes from the company's EP-101, which Shinshu Seiki launched in September 1968 as the world's first compact digital mini-printer. The name joins the initials EP, for "Electronic Printer", with the word "son", so that "Epson" reads as "son of EP-101". Epson entered the smart glasses market under the Moverio brand in November 2011, and the line has since gone through several generations, shifting from a consumer media device toward enterprise and industrial Augmented Reality.

History in AR

Epson released its first Moverio model, the Moverio BT-100, in Japan on November 9, 2011. Epson describes the BT-100 as the world's first standalone binocular see-through smart glasses to deliver audio-visual content over a wireless connection. The headset unit weighed about 165 grams (roughly 240 grams with the lens shade attached), ran Android from a tethered handheld controller, and let the wearer watch movies and web content on a large floating virtual screen using twin 0.52-inch qHD LCD panels.

Epson announced a second generation, the Moverio BT-200, at CES on January 6, 2014. The BT-200 was about 60 percent lighter than the BT-100, used a transparent see-through optical design driven by a wired handheld controller running Android 4.0.4, and added a front camera plus motion sensors for early Augmented Reality applications. It earned a 2014 CES Innovations Award. Epson discontinued the BT-200 on June 30, 2019.

The third-generation Epson Moverio BT-300 arrived at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 22, 2016. It was the first Moverio to use Epson's silicon-based OLED display, branded Si-OLED, and Epson called it the world's lightest binocular see-through smart glasses at the time, at 69 grams. The BT-300 ran Android 5.1 on a quad-core Intel Atom X5 processor, carried a 5-megapixel camera, and offered a 23-degree diagonal field of view. Epson sold an FPV/Drone Edition of the BT-300 with a controller mount for DJI remotes (Mavic, Phantom, and Inspire), aimed at line-of-sight drone piloting, and later released a glasses-based augmented reality drone flight simulator app for it.

On March 2, 2021, Epson announced the Epson Moverio BT-40 and the Epson Moverio BT-40S, the line's fourth generation. Both used Si-OLED to deliver a Full HD 1080p binocular image with a wider 34-degree field of view, equivalent to a 120-inch screen seen from about 15 feet away. The Epson Moverio BT-40 was a USB Type-C tethered display managed by a companion app, priced at 579 US dollars, while the Epson Moverio BT-40S added an Intelligent Controller running Android 9.0 with Google Mobile Services, a touchscreen, a 13-megapixel camera, and expandable storage, priced at 999 US dollars.

Epson announced its next enterprise generation, the Epson Moverio BT-45C and the BT-45CS, on October 11, 2022, positioning them squarely at remote collaboration and field work such as troubleshooting, maintenance, inspection, and training. Both pair an all-new Si-OLED optical engine with a binocular see-through Full HD display at a 34-degree field of view and an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera. The BT-45C tethers over USB-C to Android or Windows host devices, while the BT-45CS bundles a dedicated intelligent controller with its own 13-megapixel camera and touchscreen. The glasses became available through Epson channel partners in November 2022.

Technology

The defining technology behind Epson's smart glasses is Si-OLED, a silicon-based OLED microdisplay that the company developed in-house and first shipped in the Epson Moverio BT-300. By building the OLED on a monocrystalline silicon backplane, Epson moved away from the LCD backlit projection used in earlier Moverio models, which it says raised contrast, widened the color gamut, and allowed a genuinely transparent see-through image while cutting power and weight. Later Si-OLED panels reached a 0.453-inch size at 1920x1080 resolution with a contrast ratio of around 500,000 to 1.

Epson packages these panels in what it calls a proprietary optical engine, which it iterates across Moverio generations and also offers to other developers who want to build their own see-through glasses. In September 2020 the company introduced its fourth-generation optical engine, claiming roughly 1.5 times greater pixel density, five times greater contrast, and a 1.5 times wider field of view than the previous version, with Si-OLED used from the third generation onward. Moverio glasses are optical see-through devices: rather than passing camera video to opaque screens, they project the image onto transparent waveguide-style optics so the wearer keeps a direct view of the real world, which is one reason Epson markets them for tasks that demand situational awareness, from drone piloting to hands-on industrial work.

Moverio product line

Model	Year	Display / FoV	Notes
Moverio BT-100	2011	LCD see-through	First Moverio; Epson's first smart glasses; about 220 g; runs Android; wireless A/V playback
Moverio BT-200	2014	qHD (960x540) see-through	Announced at CES; about 60% lighter than BT-100; wired Android controller; front camera; discontinued June 30, 2019
Epson Moverio BT-300	2016	Si-OLED, 23-degree diagonal FoV	First Si-OLED Moverio; 69 g; Intel Atom X5; Android 5.1; sold in an FPV/Drone Edition for DJI
Epson Moverio BT-40	2021	Si-OLED Full HD, 34-degree FoV	USB-C tethered display; companion app; 579 US dollars
Epson Moverio BT-40S	2021	Si-OLED Full HD, 34-degree FoV	BT-40 plus Intelligent Controller (Android 9.0), 13 MP camera; 999 US dollars
Epson Moverio BT-45C	2022	Si-OLED Full HD, 34-degree FoV	Enterprise; new optical engine; USB-C tether to Android/Windows; 8 MP camera
Moverio BT-45CS	2022	Si-OLED Full HD, 34-degree FoV	BT-45C plus dedicated intelligent controller with 13 MP camera; for mission-critical field work

Market position

As a corporation Epson is large and diversified: Seiko Epson reported revenue of about 1.36 trillion yen for fiscal 2024 and employed roughly 75,000 people as of March 31, 2025. Within Augmented Reality, however, Moverio is a relatively small business that Epson has steadily repositioned. Early models such as the BT-100 and BT-200 were pitched partly at consumers for personal video viewing, but from the BT-300 onward the company emphasized professional and industrial uses: drone first-person view, remote expert support, maintenance, logistics, training, and healthcare. Epson also licenses its Si-OLED optical engine to third-party developers, making the company a component supplier for the wider Smart glasses market as well as a finished-glasses brand. Because the Moverio glasses rely on optical see-through Si-OLED rather than full passthrough Mixed Reality, they occupy a different niche than VR Headsets and standalone Mixed Reality visors, competing instead with enterprise AR wearables.