Epson's Moverio Smart Glasses Now Shipping for $700

Epson has announced that its Moverio BT-200 glasses have hit commercial availability. The Moverio BT-200 are binocular glasses with several sensors, including gyro, accelerometer and compass for tracking head movement, in addition to its front-facing camera. The glasses are tethered to a smartphone-sized control unit running Android ICS.

Priced at $699.99 and available through Epson.com as well as prelaunch.com, Epson is targeting enterprise, Android app developers and early adopters with Moverio BT-200. While $700 isn’t exactly cheap, when you’ve got solutions like the Vuzix M100 and Google’s Glass making the smart glasses space a pretty pricey investment, the Moverio BT-200 looks downright affordable. If that price seems too high, you could always go for the first generation Moverio BT-100. It's cheaper, but it's been around longer than Google Glass (since late-2011) or really since before the whole wearable trend kicked off, so it's a bit of a dinosaur in that regard (how sad that something can be considered a dinosaur when it is barely three years old, but that's tech for ya!).

Epson is hoping the Moverio will improve efficiency across numerous markets, including healthcare, logistics, field service, energy, manufacturing, education, retail, and more. Epson is working with developers like APX Labs and Mataio to bring the technology into enterprise settings. For instance APX Labs Skylight's enterprise software platform allows for the streaming of real-time video feeds for expert field service help, as well as hands-free user interaction, and the display of overlay data.

As is the case with the majority of wearables, it’s all going to come down to apps. Epson needs to get the device out there and into the hands of app developers, and the company is obviously hoping devs will be excited enough to cough up seven hundred bucks to get their hands on one.

MORE: The Past, Present, And Future Of VR And AR: The Pioneers Speak

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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.

2 Comments Comment from the forums

Tankattack

This looks a lot more wearable the google glass, you'd still look a little goofy but nowhere near as bad as glass. But is it tethered 100% of the time? That would seam like a huge flaw when wanting to wear this out in public and you have this huge cord dangling down (the picture doesn't help). Maybe I'm wrong but that seems like a lot of extra baggage. I just don't see how you could hide the cord and be comfortable. Despite that I would get this over glass any day unless their price drops.
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clonazepam

I'm curious to see some real world battery life tests. Get on that Tom's ;-)

Send Angelini down to Long Beach HQ!
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