SmartEyeglass is the Sony variant of the Google Glass and the gadget is now available for pre-order in the UK and Germany. The following month, the item will expand to eight more countries, including Japan, the U.S.A, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden. Google’s previous version of smart glasses was not the most wanted gadget (to say the least) and despite the numerous people contesting it, Sony insisted on forwarding the SmartEyeglass, which was unveiled in September 2014.
One might believe that the Sony SmartEyeglass was built in order to exceed the specs and design offered by its earlier version from Google, but that is not necessarily the case. First and foremost, the design is atrocious, and if you considered the Google Glass a geeky-looking gadget, you should take a glance at the Sony SmartEyeglass. What makes the glasses smart is a smart phone (starting with Android 4.4), which connects with the gadget and is used in order to host devices. In the promotional video released by Sony, we can also see that the one wearing the SmartEyeglass cannot do without a quite large and round accessory, used as both microphone and touch-pad, making the device depend on so many variables – and a black circle with Sony written all over it is not something users wish to wear on a daily basis.
The Sony SmartEyeglass is equipped with a 3 MP camera for still images, also including accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, brightness sensor, microphone and noise suppression sub microphone. Wireless LAN and Bluetooth connection is a necessary option, as marks the connection with the Android host device. As for the mass of the SmartEyeglass, it weights approx. 77 g (2.7 oz) without controller, which would bring an approximate add of 45 g (1.5 oz) excluding the cable.
Price-wise, The SmartEyeglass Developer Edition, a pair of augmented reality glasses, is available for pre-order in the UK and Germany for $840 (£540 or €670), according to Mashable.