The world of wearables grows ever larger as we get closer towards the end of the year and continue to head into 2015, with loads of choices for fitness trackers and smartwatches. Smart glasses like the well known Google Glass are starting to emerge as well with a few different alternatives to the head worn wearable from Google, and now we can count Sony as one of those companies as they have recently announced that they are in development of a unit that can attach to a regular pair of glasses to provide a HUD(heads up display)type device, although it seems that Sony will be marketing this HUD unit more towards the Sports and Business side of things as opposed to regular consumers. That doesn’t mean that consumers won’t be able to purchase them.
The display unit is said to get an unveiling at the upcoming CES show that hits in the beginning of January 2015, so it shouldn’t be long before we see what Sony has been working towards with this device. Although the design is still listed as experimental, Sony has stated that they have achieved a small, compact size that can attach itself to any piece of eyewear, which means individuals should be able to fasten it on to whatever glasses they normally wear on a daily basis. This will be great for anyone who has a specific pair of prescription lenses with a frame they find already perfectly fits their face and all they’ll have to do is attach them to the Sony product.
Sony has an SDK in the works that will allow for developers to create hands free apps that provide information and other “general smartness” to the every day pair of glasses. Sony’s Single-Lens Display Module houses an accelerometer and an electronic compass. As for the battery and the internals of the device, it carries an ARM Cortex-A7 CPU inside and is powered by a 400mAh battery, but it has no camera as Sony states they left it out so they could get the device to meet size and weight standards that they were shooting for. With all the issues about Glass and its capability to pry using the onboard camera, we can’t imagine too many people will be disappointed in the fact that Sony left such a component out of the mix. The display itself is OLED technology and comes in at a size of about 0.23-inches, with a resolution of 640 x 400, and for pairing to smartphones it uses Bluetooth 3.0, although it may be able to connect directly to WiFi as well with the embedded WiFi 802.11 b/g/n technology inside. Would you purchase a pair of these if the price was reasonable?
