Olympus is redefining what a camera can do. Its latest release is a new kind of camera that is wearable and not a traditional point and shoot camera. The way the camera will work is also quite different than most cameras and has been constructed mostly for official purposes. The new camera is a 2.4MP camera embedded into the Olympus EyeTrek Insight EI-10 smart glasses.
The entire setup is designed by Olympus for “business applications” and the glasses are constructed in such a way that the camera does not obstruct from the wearer’s vision. This will remind some of Google’s ill-fated Glass camera glasses, but it is quite different. Unlike Google’s device which is a permanent fixture, the Olympus mechanism allows for the camera to be mounted onto any pair of prescription glasses. The EL-10 can shoot at a resolution of 1992×1216 pixels and can also playback images on its 640×400 OLED display. The mechanism also has custom features available for different applications in the manufacturing and the business industry.
Digital Trends reports that the camera comes with embedded sensors including a three-axis accelerometer, gyroscope and a magnetic field. There is also a touch bar on the side to allow for navigation through the different modes of the camera. Olympus also offering development tools for businesses to make use of the camera for different custom applications that can work with 1GB of RAM or ROM, all the way up to 8GB of RAM or ROM. The impressive piece of equipment comes with wireless connectivity features such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. There is also a headphone jack on board. For a device coming with so many features, the battery life comes in only at anywhere between 30 minutes to one hour of usage. The company also provides a pack of batteries to extend the use of the glasses. The main reason for the short capacity of the battery is to keep the weight of the entire setup low.
The El-10 smart glasses feature Pupil-Division Optical System and bring clear image quality to the user compared to the competition. For industries that require workers to pull out information without needing to take out a device or their phone, the glasses should be useful and save time in the logistics process. The new camera won’t come cheap however, with Olympus selling the entire mechanism at $1,500. It will be available in the US starting November.
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