Epson has announced the third generation of its Moverio smart glasses for Augmented Reality.

Available in Australia and New Zealand later this year, the Moverio BT-300 features Epson’s own cutting edge silicon-based OLED (organic light emitting diode) digital display technology, enabling the device to be the lightest see-through binocular smartglasses on the market.

20% lighter than its predecessor, the BT-200, the latest generation is setting a new standard for augmented reality smart eyewear.

Epson’s focus on a wide range of commercial and other applications including the potential for using the BT-300 to help fly drones distinguishes the Moverio range from other smartglasses on the market.

The previous BT-200 model is already in wide use in some of Australia’s top education and research organisations including the CSIRO, the University of Western Sydney, Griffith University, Monash University’s Immersive Visualisation Platform and CAVE2 and Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology.

Developed with function at the forefront, the range has proved popular with business customers and independent software vendors (ISVs). The Moverio BT-300 continues Epson’s commitment to binocular smart eyewear, real optical see-through overlay, and increased performance, both essential for professional use and opens new consumer applications opportunities.

Built with a quad core Intel Atom processor and Android OS 5.1, the BT-300 has significantly increased power to enable it to process 3D heavy content, and maintains up to six hours of battery life. Seeing and making sense of the user’s environment through a 5-mega-pixel front-facing HD camera and other sensors, the smartglasses render content based on what is seen. As on previous models, and cautious of privacy standards, the device features an LED to indicate when the camera is recording.

Epson general manager Atsunari Tsuda said Moverio is distinct from other smartglasses on the market where form often supersedes function, to the detriment of the product’s usability.

“Every design decision we make is driven by consideration for the product’s ultimate usage scenarios and our Si-OLED technology opens a new world for us in binocular see-through smart eyewear development,” he says.

“With OLED we can take advantage of reductions in power usage and weight, and improvements in response times, HD resolution, brightness and contrast. By choosing silicon rather than glass for our base wafer we achieve an even more high-density pixel display.”