Back in September last year, Sony had unveiled plans to venture further in to the field of wearable tech by announcing augmented reality goggles. At that point of time, all we were offered was a software development kit. Now, the Japanese giant has started taking pre orders in the UK and Germany for what it is calling SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1, ready to go on sale in ten countries next month, priced at $840 USD or 100,000 yen.
The glasses can be paired with an Android device, and information from the phone can be seen on these glasses, along with showing information relevant to your surroundings that are actually live direct or indirect views with parameters augmented by computer-generated sensory inputs such as sound or video.
These glasses use a tech called holographic waveguide technology. This specific device uses 3.0mm augmented reality lenses with a transparency rate of 85% , to put information directly in the wearer’s line of sight, overlay full-colour, 3D, high-definition images. This happens to be different from technologies used in devices like Google Glass or Oculus Rift. It has a 3MP camera in a niche inside, which can be used by developers in their apps.
It appears to resemble Google Glass, with green monochrome text and diagrams displayed with speeds up to 15fps. It weighs around 77 grams, and has a battery life of 80 minutes with display active if camera is being used, 150 minutes if it is not. It has got a controller that houses the battery, speaker, microphone, NFC and touch controls. It has got a host app on Google Play, so that you can access apps like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, RSS and calendars via the device.
Cool technology, check. Cool when it comes to looks? Not so much- the glasses are chunky and people are definitely going to stare if you step outside wearing it. Fingers crossed for better aesthetics in the upcoming consumer editions.
