Sony SmartEyeglass SED-E1 now available in UK
Last month Google announced that it was binning their original line of Glass tech specs but Sony hasn’t wasted any time in plugging the gap with its own smart eyewear.
Sony has just announced details of its SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1. These augmented reality glasses are available for pre-order now in the UK and Germany for $840 (£540 or €670).
SmartEyeglass, which connects to host devices running Android 4.4 and above, uses a 419×138-pixel, monochrome green display projected onto the lenses. It includes a 3-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, speaker, microphone and a host of various sensors, including an accelerometer, gyroscope, brightness sensor and an electronic compass.
In a promotional video (below), Sony shows how the glasses can be used to communicate, get directions and share photos.
SmartEyeglass is not an entirely new product (it was unveiled in Sept. 2014), and it looks as if little has changed. Sony’s chunky 77g black-rimmed specs are certainly not as subtle (I can’t believe I’m saying this) as Google Glass. Glass is also wireless, whereas Sony’s specs connect with a wire to a hockey puck-sized control unit that holds the battery, speaker, microphone and touch controls.
Nevertheless, Sony also released an official SmartEyeglass SDK today, Tuesday 17th February, which means that developers can now create apps for the device.
The SmartEyeglass will become available in eight more countries in March: United States, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden.
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