These $1,000, Alexa-enabled smart glasses feel like the first fully baked AR product since the failure of Google Glass.
The Verge, January 9, 2018 – Vuzix, a Rochester, New York-based display provider, has been trying to resurrect the promise of Google Glass for years now, but this year’s iteration finally feels ready. The company’s new product, called the Vuzix Blade, was unveiled at CES this week in Las Vegas. It’s a pair of augmented reality smart glasses that float a screen in the upper right corner of your vision. But unlike previous iterations, in which the technology protruded in ugly and apparent fashion, the Blade is the first device Vuzix has developed that contains nearly every aspect of the display and its power source within the eyewear frames.
The company has partnered with Amazon to bring Alexa integration to the device, making the Blade the first pair of AR glasses to make use of Amazon’s voice-based digital assistant. And the glasses are not just a prototype. Vuzix plans to deliver a developer version of the product in the next few months, with a consumer version coming in the second quarter of this year. The price right now is $1,000, but Vuzix hopes to bring it down to less than $500 with future generations. To continue reading the article, click here.