Google Glass may be dead, but Epson is still keeping the dream alive; its Moverio BT-300 smart glasses are the third and best iteration in a consistently evolving set of augmented-reality specs. The new glasses will be coming to Australia this year, and Epson thinks they’ll be good for more than just hardcore business and medical fields: it’s saying they’ll be useful for drone pilots and photographers.
The new Moverio BT-300 is 20 per cent lighter than the last-generation BT-200, making it the lightest set of smart glasses on the market. That’s important, too, because Epson is touting these as useful in everyday life, not necessarily just for the extremely limited fields that the previous model was used in — mostly diagnostic imaging and other medical areas.
The Epson glasses actually have an Intel Atom X5 processor inside, running Android 5.1 and connecting through a wired cable to an external battery and control pack. Two OLED displays in the lenses, translucent so they can be looked past as well as into, can either display 2D content to each eye or can be teamed for 3D, augmented-reality-style viewing.
The dream of Google Glass — of smart specs you could wear around while still looking relatively normal, snapping photos of exactly what you’re seeing, getting notifications popping up in the edge of your eye-line, and generally living an augmented Deus Ex-esque life — was a few years before its time. But if there was one company I’d bank on being the closest to turning that dream into a reality, it’d be Epson.
The Epson Moverio BT-300 will be out in Australia later this year — we’re looking forward to getting our hands on some and letting you know what we think. [Epson]