Forget Google Glass, Sony's SmartEyeglass now on sale

New York: While the world is yet to get over the shocking demise of eye-wearable device Google Glass, Japanese multinational firm Sony has launched a cheaper edition of its device known as SmartEyeglass.

Available in the US, Britain, Germany and Japan for $840 from March, the high-tech spectacles are now on sale for pre-order bookings in Britain and Germany, CNET reported.

Though not as elegant as Google Glass, the SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1 is like regular spectacles with a transparent screen in the lenses.

The wearer can see features like e-mails and notifications floating in front of his or her eyes.

Once paired with the smartphone, the Sony glasses can show you what is going on with the apps in your pocket.

Sony's glasses connect with a wire to a hockey puck-sized control unit that holds the battery, speaker, microphone and touch controls.

The glasses display information in the colour green only.

The battery lasts around two hours 30 minutes.

It has got a host app on Google Play so that one can access apps like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, RSS and calendars on the device.

According to a recent report in The New York Times, the new team at Google Glass wants to "redesign the product from scratch and not release it until it is complete".

Google Glass is now overseen by Ivy Ross, a jewellery designer who runs Google's smart-eyewear division and Tony Fadell, a former Apple product executive, it added.

Google Glass was unveiled as a prototype in 2012.

It was distributed as part of the Explorer programme to a select group of people who paid $1,500 to be early adopters.

On Jan 19 this year, Google quietly suspended selling Google Glass to consumers while continuing to support Glass as an enterprise product.