Camera glasses aren’t a new idea, but Spectacles — the camera-equipped sunglasses from the company that made Snapchat — are the kind of product that can open the floodgates. One of the first ideas through those gates is being announced today from a small company called PogoTec. But instead of making glasses with a camera inside, PogoTec has gone a different, modular route.
The company wants to replace the round support wire in the arms (or “temples”) of glasses with a flat one, magnetize it, and then cut away part of the surrounding plastic to expose the metal. They call this design “PogoTrack,” and the company says it has partnered with “a number of glasses frame companies” to incorporate the idea into their products.
An increasing number of companies want to put technology on your face
PogoTec won’t say who those partners are yet, but Richard Clompus, the company’s vice president of communications, showed off about 30 different styles during a short briefing last week. The whole point of this idea is that you’ll be able to attach any one of a suite of PogoTec products to a pair of glasses without being limited on design, or being left out in the cold if you wear prescription lenses. And the first product PogoTec plans to make for these glasses is, of course, a camera.
PogoTec
The $129 camera, called PogoCam, is a tiny self-powered unit smaller than a tube of lipstick. It has its own metal strip that magnetically attaches to any pair of glasses with PogoTrack. The resulting package isn’t as seamless as Spectacles, but it’s also not quite as alien (or alienating) as Google Glass.