In 2012, Vuzix sold its defense team Vuzix TDG (Tactical Display Group) to TDG Acquisition Company, LLC and the new entity was called Six15. This new company also signed a deal with Vuzix in 2014 that made it the exclusive distributor for the Defense, Homeland Security and First Responder markets.
In a recent interview with Six15 CEO Rich Ryan, Product Design and Development reports that Six15 will now start to address the commercial markets. The company states that the goal is to develop a new headset based on the Tac-Eye 2.0 for these markets. So far, Six15 has not released any more information on this new device except to say that it is using the Tac-Eye 2.0 for testing.
Analyst Comment
On the first look, it seems that Six15 is expanding its reach into other markets. While one could speculate that this may put some strain on its relationship with Vuzix going forward, the question is why Six15 made this move? Six15 is very much entrenched in the military and related markets and if the company feels that it has to extend its market reach, it seems that the military market might have reached some kind of saturation already. Six15 is not the first company that is looking at commercial markets as the next target market for augmented reality, including Vuzix and Google. – NH
