Facebook’s interest in AR smart glasses was telegraphed by Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s 2016 developer conference. A new report today reveals some details about Facebook’s “Orion” project and a possible time frame.
We’ve seen several competitors to Google Glass over the past few years, including smart glasses from Vuzix and Epson. The latter of those, in fact, beat Google to the market back in 2012 with its Moverio glasses. Today, Epson has announced its second generation smart glasses, powered by Android.
Google Glass is expected to be available to consumers sometime in 2014, but if you’re really dying to get your hands on a pair of smart glasses before then, Vuzix has got you covered. The company today announced that its M100 Smart Glasses are now available to preorder for $1,000. The glasses are quoted as shipping within 2-4 weeks, so arrival by Christmas is not guaranteed.
The M110 Smart Glasses feature a 16:9 WQVGA display, which is equivalent to a 4-inch smartphone screen hovering 14 inches away. As far as cameras go, the device has a 5MP sensor for still images and can record video in 1080p. The glasses are powered by a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, as well as Android. They can also pair with your Android phone, and run many Android apps out of the box, as well as connect to WiFi networks.
At $1,000, the M100 Smart Glasses are definitely cheaper than Google Glass, but it remains unclear which will be more functional and what Google will add to its offering before making it readily available.
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Analytics company IHS has estimated that the ‘smart glasses’ market could generate 9.4m sales by 2016, with real growth beginning in 2014 when Google Glass goes on sale to the general public (via ZDNet). Sales have so far been restricted to a limited number of developers, celebrities and contest winners via the Explorer Edition.
The company describes 9.4m as the most optimistic forecast, and says that apps are key. Without compelling apps, they estimate just 1m sales.
While analyst forecasts are a black art at the best of times, predicting the sales of a new product category without even knowing who else may enter the market seems a particular stretch, but perhaps you can’t go too far wrong with a forecast ranging all the way from 1m to 9.4m …