Google may have temporarily shelved its Glass headgear, but thanks to Sony, folks that have an interest in smart eyewear won’t have to leave their pupils bare.
Sony’s SmartEyeglass prototype will launch in early March. Sony is taking pre-orders for the kit, which is called the SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1, and the eyewear is slated to cost around $840 in the U.S., 100,000 yen in Japan, 520 pounds in the U.K., and €670 in all other countries. The pre-orders are currently live in the U.K. and Germany, but Sony says that the SmartEyeglass will also be available in the U.S. and Japan at launch and that it’ll also be sold to enterprise customers in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
The SmartEyeglass is an augmented reality headset that lets you superimpose text, symbols, and images onto your field of view. This includes directions, camera controls, messages, and more.
In terms of specs, the Sony SmartEyeglass has a 3-megapixel camera, a microUSB port for charging, support for Android 4.4 and higher, a resolution of 419x138, and a battery that’s slated for around 150 minutes of continuous use without the camera or approximately 80 minutes of continuous use if the camera is used.
Compared to Google Glass, Sony’s SmartEyeglass is a little more than half of the price of Google’s headwear. Sony’s headwear is also a bit less stylish than Google Glass, but it’s worth noting that this is identified as a developer device, and Sony could clean up SmartEyeglass’s look if it does launch a consumer-focused version.
What do you think of Sony’s SmartEyeglass? Are you thinking about ordering a developer unit?
