We love Google’s augmented reality glasses project, “Project Glass”. But even before these $1500 beauties hit the market, a less expensive competitor has been unveiled at CES this week.
Vuzix defines its new M100 Smart Glasses as a “hands-free personal display and communications system” for linking users to smartphone data and the Cloud. That means you’ll be able to text, e-mail, watch videos, maps, and audio all through this wireless display system. And of course make phone calls.
The Vuzix M100 contains a processing engine running Android OS. Unlike the Google glasses, the Vuzix won’t have enough internal hardware to operate as a standalone wireless device. They have to wirelessly connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to a smartphone (iOS or Android).
For now, the M100 includes an integrated head tracker and GPS for spatial and position awareness. The integrated camera enables video and still image capture for recording to the integrated SD card or for sharing clips over the web. The interactive tracking and the camera linked to the Cloud (through the M100 app on a smartphone) let’s these glasses merge virtual information with the real world.
The Smart Glasses have been rated as one of the five top gadgets expected at CES by CNBC and received the CES Innovations award. The first public models will be showcased at CES in Las Vegas this week. You can watch a video demonstration on the Vuzix’s website.
The Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 are expected to ship in second half of 2013 and could revolutionize the way we interface with the digital world. Speaking personally, I can’t wait to play with a pair of these.