14 DAY TRIAL // Toshiba is not one of those companies that have jumped head first into wearables, like Samsung has. The device maker has reluctantly pushed a simple fitness tracker, but also a biological wearable sensor, aiming at the health market.
But the company has yet to take up the building of smartwatches, which are the most hyped products in the wearable category. However, this could be for a very good reason.
Toshiba is apparently getting ready to provide some serious competition to another wearable category, from which most brand vendors have stayed clear of.
As Japanese Engadget reports, this week at the CEATEC trade show in Japan, Toshiba is showing off a Google Glass variation of its own.
Toshiba takes up smart glasses
The product is being touted as the Toshiba Glass and is being said to arrive on the market with a cheaper price tag than Google’s.
Toshiba’s head mounted piece has a smallish lightweight projector which lives on one of the arms of the Glass, in the vicinity of the lens. The projector is used to display an image that reflects off into the inside of the lens in order to provide the viewer with an augmented reality-type display.
The Google Glass also takes advantage of a built-in projector, but unlike the Toshiba, it has a prism over the lens which helps reflect the image directly into the eye.
Toshiba says the glasses weigh 42 g / 0.09 lbs which is the same as the Google Glass, but that’s a bit questionable since Google doesn’t reveal in its spec list how heavy its Glass is.
At a closer analysis, the Toshiba Glass proves to be less impressive than the Google one, for various reasons. First off, the Toshiba one is not wireless, so in the vein of smartwatches, it will have to connect to a smartphone in order to be of any use.
Toshiba blames this on the projector battery, which would have made the glasses too heavy. Google seems to have the upper hand here, because the search giant pulled it off, no extra wires involved.
Furthermore, the Toshiba Glass fails to be so impressive because it isn’t a real fully-fledged computing device, but merely a wearable display that can connect to your smartphone.
Even more, the Toshiba Glass seems to be even more awkward than the Google Glass and the prototype displayed at CEATEC doesn't really look ready to make a plunge on the market.
Toshiba Glasses are on schedule to be launched in 2015
Toshiba gives us an example of the Glass’ applicability talking of a scenario where you can see your speed and heart rate displayed while you are cycling or working out.
But this play-out is hard to be envisioned with a wire hanging off the wearer's back.
Given their clumsy design and limited usability, the product will retail for less than the Google Glass, which is sold for $1,500 / €1,188. Toshiba will be offering three design styles for the glasses frame, including standard, sporty and industrial.
Toshiba hopes to launch the product in North America in Japan next year, but hopefully the company will use the remaining time to improve things in the design department.
