We first caught eyes on the SmartEyeglass, Sony’s answer to Google Glass, at the MWC tradeshow earlier this year. Whilst, Sony has been silent on its progress since February (despite an appearance at IFA 2014), it has today announced the release of a software development kit for the SmartEyeglass.
The SDK allows developers to build apps for the SmartEyeglass platform to “support the product at launch.” The news indicates that Sony does plan to launch the product at some point, although we imagine the final design will be much sleeker and discrete.
So what is SmartEyeglass? Well it functions similarly to Google Glass, superimposing information onto transparent eyewear and works by connecting to your Android device. Hardware features include a 3MP camera (capable of VGA video recording ), accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, brightness sensor and mic.
Sony says that the lens it is using achieves high transparency of 85% and thickness of just 3.0 mm. It uses a monochrome display delivering high luminance (up to 1,000 cd/m2) so that text can easily be read in a variety of environments.
SmartEyeglass specifications
– Binocular see-through eyewear with a wired controller.
– 419(H) × 138(V) px display resolution.
– Monochrome green display with 8bit color depth.
– 1000 cd/m2 maximum brightness.
– More than 85% see-through transmittance.
– Accelerometer, gyro, electronic compass, brightness sensor, microphones.
– 3MP camera for still pictures, VGA (640 x 480px) for videos.
– Speaker available in the controller.
– Bluetooth v3.0 and IEEE802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity to your Android device.
– Supports Android 4.1 or above (Android 4.3 or above needed for videos).
– Weight ?77g (eyewear without the cable) and ?44g (controller)
Thanks Varun!
