Google Glass is about giving you a lot of information via its heads-up display, overlaying that information into your vision and that can be a little intrusive and intense for some people, plus you look like with it on your glasses (at least in my opinion).
ION are promising a cheaper and less intrusive alternative, although that does come at the cost of functionality as the ION glasses don’t pack quite as many features as their Google rivals. There is an LED, Bluetooth stack and a button controller built into the frame of the glasses, that’s it, nothing else.
Santiago Ambit, the founder of ION thinks that this simplicity is key, why have so much going in front of your face any way. Being able to keep your phone on silent is handy, but a little LED indicator that only you could see, one that can be configured to different colours for messages and/or calls from different people could prove useful in meetings, or maybe for those times you just can’t be bothered answering your phone.
There is even a radar feature for finding your mobile device, a button to control your music and beep alerts should you need them.
The glasses are said to last a week on a single charge, but with just a tiny Bluetooth hook up, piezo buzzer, LED and a button in there, there is hardly much to burn through a lot of power anyway. The added benefit here is that the system can be embedded inside a standard pair of glasses, it’s minimal footprint doesn’t increase the weight much and the frames you get are suitable for prescription or sunglass lenses.
All this is for a pledge of just $89 and the company have already raised over $20k of the $150k they’re aiming for on Indiegogo. Personally I think this is a little bit too basic, but I’m sure there will be people out there who are happy to have a discreet visual notification system for their mobile device.
Thank you TechCrunch for providing us with this information.
Image courtesy of Indiegogo.
