Wearables

Epiphany Eyewear: the not-as-smart glasses you can pre-order today

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Though technically smart glasses, Epiphany Eyewear isn't nearly as smart as Google Glass
Though technically smart glasses, Epiphany Eyewear isn't nearly as smart as Google Glass
At least you'll look a bit less nerdy than you will wearing Glass
A subtle "on button" may be the most obvious indication that these aren't ordinary sunglasses
These aren't your mother's Ray-Bans
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Are you pulling your hair out waiting for Google Glass to launch? One company has an alternative that you can pre-order right now. There is, however, a big catch. Actually, make that several big catches – as the device’s limitations might be too numerous for you to bother.

Glass rival?

A subtle "on button" may be the most obvious indication that these aren't ordinary sunglasses

Epiphany Eyewear is a Google Glass alternative ... sort of. Before we get to the drawbacks, it actually has one big advantage over Glass. Namely, you can wear it without looking like you have a computer attached to your face. The glasses, created by Vergence Labs, look mostly like a regular pair of sunglasses.

The drawback, though, is that this computer doesn’t do much more than a regular pair of sunglasses does. Okay, so it will capture point of view videos. It will also adjust the degree of shade that its lenses provide (yep, we're talking computerized transition lenses). Hell, it even has up to 32 GB of on-board storage.

Limits

At least you'll look a bit less nerdy than you will wearing Glass

As for its other features ... well, there are none. Google Glass should come to market with a suite of Google apps (expect modified versions of Google Now, Google Maps, Gmail, etc.) and the fruit of countless third-party developers’ imaginations. Epiphany Eyewear ... uh ... takes videos and stores data.

Okay, so that’s not entirely fair. As we already mentioned, it adjusts the lenses’ tint. It also lets you share those first-person videos on your favorite social networks. And you can take those videos without looking like a character from Star Trek.

But Epiphany Eyewear’s biggest limitation is that it has no display. So after you record those videos, you’ll have to watch them elsewhere. It also has no voice recognition capabilities. No turn-by-turn navigation, no video chat, no notifications, no augmented reality of any kind. Just ... recording lots of POV videos. Maybe amateur pornographers will find something useful here.

A different product

These aren't your mother's Ray-Bans

So the Google Glass comparison isn’t really fair. While Glass is an entirely new computing platform, Epiphany is a camera and some flash memory attached to a regular-looking pair of sunglasses.

Epiphany will almost certainly cost much less than Glass. Google hasn’t announced its pricing, but Epiphany starts at US$300 for the 8 GB model (it also comes in 16 GB and 32 GB versions).

Though you can pre-order Epiphany Eyewear today, it might only beat Glass to market by a few months. Vergence Labs estimates a “late [Northern hemisphere] summer” ship date. We expect Google Glass to ship by the end of 2013.

You can read up more on these not-as-smart glasses at the source link below.

Source: Epiphany Eyewear via Venturebeat

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5 comments
Keith Reeder
"At least you'll look a bit less nerdy than you will wearing Glass"
In Clark Kent's hand-me-downs?
Hardly..!
JimRD
I like them. Will use for recording my rc airplane flights.
attoman
That's great! Price is right. It's potentially a platform that can develop without the know-it-alls at Google to pretend they invented such things.
A real opportunity for a small company to make companion products and no I'm not going to describe them so Google can use the new Patent Law they paid for to literally steal the ideas.
Artem Down
@JimD You're going to put these sunglasses on your RCairplane? Cool!!!!
incogneato
The last I heard, Google Glass was pre-selling at $1500 per pair!!!! Hello?????? I certainly hope they have different attributes--coming from Google! But who the heck wants to pay $1500 for a first generation?! At least the Epiphany design has fashion appeal, is affordable for the average gadget lover, and will provide loads of fun.
I see Epiphany Eyewear also provides an upload site YouGen.tv.