Wearable technology has seen some interesting and innovative new devices hit the market over the past few years, but not all wearables appear as attractive as others. That of course, shouldn’t degrade the attention to what they promise in terms of use. What some may lack in style, they may make up for in functionality. Some of the most controversial pieces of wearable tech have been centered around smart glasses, and with good reason given the capabilities they possess, with the most notorious in the media being Google Glass as it’s drawn the most attention, both good and bad.
Glass has inspired no shortage of clones or close look-alike competitors from other companies, all looking to get a piece of the pie in an otherwise untouched area of the wearables market. One of the most recent sets of smart glasses are interestingly enough, not just smart glasses. In fact, they’re not smart glasses at all, but rather smart headphones with a heads-up-display type attachment which looks like Google Glass. They’re called the SiME Smart Headphones and are developed by a company called ChipSip, who showcased the device at the recent Computex conference in Taipei this week.
Short of looking like Google Glass, the heads-up-display on the SiME smart headphones also functions in much the same way, with a similar touchpad that’s been integrated into the arm unit that runs along the side of the wearer’s face. Using this touchpad is how users will navigate the different features of the headset/smart headphones mashup, which isn’t at all unlike how you control Google Glass. The device runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and will reportedly allow users to stream videos from their Android phones as well as act as an immersive entertainment product to provide users with audio sensory stimulation that pairs up with the visuals from the heads-up display unit. Users should also be able to browse the web or stream and listen to music with the device when it becomes available to purchase, although at this time there is no word on when exactly it will be available, and there’s no word yet on cost of the unit. ChipSip’s other wearable device called the SiME Smart Glasses are available for developers for around $550, so with these providing extra functionality don’t be surprised to see them cost a little bit more.