Is Huawei Planning A Google Glass Competitor?

Huawei is looking to shake up the wearable tech market by launching a competitor to Google Glass, reports have suggested.

The Chinese manufacturer is reportedly turning to Honor, its new consumer brand for Western markets, as it looks to take on Google’s smart glasses with an offering of its own.

Images of the rumoured device were posted on Chinese social media site Weibo over the weekend, adding that the Honor glasses will come with a 5-megapixel camera, a 640 x 480 display, and gesture recognition.

The device will reportedly run using Android 4.4, and could be built on military grade hardware, with the images including hardware from Lumus, a military contractor known for its F-16 helmet heads-up displays.

Sight for sore eyes

Huawei launched the Honor brand last month as part of a move to gain more of a foothold in the Western smartphone market. The brand launched with the release of Honor 6, which the company dubbed “the world’s fastest smartphone” due to its ability to support 4G speeds of up to 300Mbps, and last week announced a second device, the low-cost Honor 3C.

Google made its smart glasses available to purchase in the UK in July, although at £1,000 they don’t come cheap. This hasn’t stopped a wide range of business and organisations adopting the devices as part of a move to enrich their customer experience, including the likes of Virgin Atlantic (pictured above) and the Dubai Police Force.

However, Google Glass is still viewed with suspicion by many law enforcement agencies, and has fallen foul of the law on several occasions, with the company admitting it needs to work with governments around the world to agree regulation on the device.

Reports earlier this year also said that Lenovo was planning to release a Google Glass competitor, as the world’s largest PC manufacturer prepared a move into the wearable technology market.

The company promised it would look at releasing a series of wearable devices following its purchase of Motorola Mobility, and has already shown a prototype of its own smart glasses product alongside launching a product with US manufacturer Vuzix.

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