Google Glass competitors: What are they and how do they compare?

All eyes are on Google Glass right now, but the search engine giant's expensive and beta-only wearable isn't going to be the last of its kind. In fact, it's not even the first of its kind.

Yes, there are several Google Glass competitors out there with strikingly similar head-mounted technology, all encouraging a more immersive digital lifestyle without the need to constantly look down at a phone's screen.

A few are less expensive than Glass and one has already launched, beating Google to the expected 2014 consumer product roll-out of its currently invite-only project.

These smaller companies may not have the name recognition of Google or access to all of your data, but their head-mounted ideas deserve just as much face time.

1. Meta Pro

Price: $2,985 (about £1,829, AU$3,349)

Release Date: June 2014

If Tony Stark wore augmented reality glasses, he wouldn't wear Google Glass. Iron Man would prefer Meta Pro from the ambitious AR startup Meta.

The company is taking Google's heads-up display head-on by boasting that its wearables' "Giant 3D holographic HD screen" provides a 15 times larger screen area than Google Glass.

With both right and left eyes able to see Meta Pro's 3D holographic interface, there's an impressive 40 degree binocular field of view vs Google Glass' 14 degree monocular field of view.

It also has the ability to recognize hand gesture interactions and mirror all of your devices, including phones and laptops, so that all of your apps travel with you.

Selling them as "the most powerful wearable computer available," the Meta Pro specs include a 1.5GHz Intel i5 CPU, high power GPU, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD.

But you better have Tony Stark money to buy these fancy AR glasses. Meta Pro's sleek-looking consumer model is up for pre-order for $2,985 (about £1,829, AU$3,349).

There's also a developer pair with less impressive specs and more of a science-nerd look than someone like the billionaire playboy-superhero would prefer. It has to be tethered to a computer and costs $667 (about £409, AU$749).

Meta Pro and META.01 Developer Edition's "see the future" marketing promise is slated to become reality when deliveries start in June 2014.

2. Vuzix Smart Glasses M100

Price: $999.99 (about £611/AU$1,116)

Release Date: Available Now

Claiming to be the "world's first commercially available Smart Glasses," the Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 had a staring contest with Google Glass and didn't blink in delivering on time.

The currently available Google Glass rival ironically runs an Android-based operating system and is compatible with thousands of its apps, according to Vuzix.

Furthermore, its monocular display over one eye and five megapixel camera with the ability to record HD video match what Google's Explorer Edition wearable is capable of right now.

There are a bunch of 3-axis sensors on-board too: gyro, accelerometer and a compass, making it suitable for its target audience of "industrial, medical, retail and prosumer applications."

It's also significantly cheaper than the $1,500 (about £917/AU$1,675) Google Glass and new orders, in gray or white, are available to ship within two to four weeks.

Before ordering, you should down the downsides, like the obvious fact that this small Rochester, New York company is going up against the Mountain View, Calif. internet titan.

The M100 also it has an older USB mini B port, a smaller 4GB of flash storage (vs Glass' 16GB) and no fancy touch screen. We don't like that much either, especially in our futuristic tech.

3. Optinvent Ora-S AR

Price: $949 or £699 (about AU$1,059)

Release Date: March 2014

The Optinvent Ora-S AR glasses are interesting because they promise full frames shades with "True AR," as the company likes to call it.

This is achieved by combining augmented reality with a dashboard mode in which images can be centered in a user's line of sight or in their peripheral vision for "info snacking." Sounds tasty.

TOPICS
Matt Swider
Latest in Tech
The Apple MacBook Air next to the Dyson Supersonic R and new AMD GPU
ICYMI: the week's 7 biggest tech stories from the best tech at MWC to Apple's new iPads and MacBooks
A triptych image featuring the Bose Solo Soundbar 2, Nothing Phone 3a Pro and the Panasonic Lumix S1R II.
5 trailblazing tech reviews of the week: Nothing's stylish, affordable flagship and why you should buy AMD's new graphics card over Nvidia's
The best tech of MWC 2025 examples, including the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, the Nubia Flip 2, and the Lenovo Solar PC
Best of MWC 2025: the 10 top tech launches we tried on the show floor
Toy Fair 2025 Primal Hatch
The 7 best toys we saw at Toy Fair 2025, from a Lego boat to a hatching, robotic dinosaur
ICYMI
ICYMI: the 7 biggest tech stories of the week, from a next-gen Alexa to the new iPhone 16e
A triptych image featuring the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, iPhone 16e and Amazon Echo Show 21.
5 hottest tech reviews of the week: the gorgeous, affordable iPhone 16e and Amazon's epic 21-inch Echo Show
Latest in News
Lego Mario Kart – Mario & Standard Kart set on a shelf.
Lego just celebrated Mario Day in the best way possible, with an incredible Mario Kart set that's up for preorder now
TCL QM7K TV on orange background
TCL’s big, bright new mid-range mini-LED TVs have built-in Bang & Olufsen sound
Homepage of Manus, a new Chinese artificial intelligence agent capable of handling complex, real-world tasks, is seen on the screen of an iPhone.
Manus AI may be the new DeepSeek, but initial users report problems
Google Maps
Nightmare Google Maps glitch is deleting timelines, and there isn't a fix yet
Twitter social media application change logo to X. Elon Musk CEO of twitter rebranded Twitter to 'X'. Social media application technology concept.
X is down again – Elon Musk confirms 'massive cyberattack' as former Twitter site hit by fourth outage today
Joe Goldberg and Kate Lockwood sitting at a table and looking at the camera in You season 5.
Netflix releases a killer new trailer for You season 5 but my favorite character is missing from Joe's final chapter