Pivothead Wearable Imaging Launches Next Generation SMART Eyewear and New IndieGoGo Campaign

Pivothead Wearable Imaging - a Gold Sponsor for TMC's (News - Alert) upcoming Sport and Fitness Tech (FAST) Conference and upcoming Wearable Tech Conference - and the developer of a very cool video-cam smart glasses device and platform, the Pivothead Eyewear, is introducing a next generation of its platform called Pivothead SMART (Simple Modular Application-Ready Technology). The company has also announced the launch of a new Indiegogo campaign to bring its SMART eyewear to market next year, along with important new and enhanced features.

Pivothead, which is headquartered in Denver, was founded in 2010 and was the first company to engineer and globally mass-market professional-grade photo and video functionality using high-performance, full HD, video encoding low power System-on-Chip (SoC) technology within an eyewear platform. The approach has resulted in true point-of-view, hands- and mount-free capabilities for its users.

Though it is tempting to think of Pivothead Eyewear as a simple means to grab images and videos “of the kids” – which of course it does quite well, it’s real strength is opening up a great deal of professional-level possibilities. Consider for example the ability for a pro football team to live-stream multiple views from the football field in real time directly from the perspective of the players themselves to say, a smartphone or tablet to a person in the stands.

The company also offers Air Sync, a connected device offering enough storage for up to six hours of video, 20 thousand 8 megapixel images or any combination in between. Still not enough? Air Sync also supports an additional 32 GB of memory through SD card support.

The next generation Pivothead SMART delivers full 1080p high-definition (HD) video and the same 8 megapixel photo capture capability of Pivothead's original eyewear. But Pivothead has now also added Smart Mods – “live” plug and play modules that add numerous additional capabilities to the eyewear. The company believes it offers a revolutionary new design approach to wearable technology.

The new modular SMART lineup delivers on a host of new features that includes full HD wireless live streaming. In particular, the platform targets delivery of simple and easy real-time sharing activities across numerous applications.

Of particular interest to us, Pivothead will shortly release its new software developers kit (SDK) during the Indiegogo campaign. Pivothead’s goal is to fully engage with the developer community with an ecosystem and platform that it hopes will enable developers to create a diverse collection of third party applications. The company anticipates these apps being created in advance of and available for PivotHead’s official SMART consumer launch in spring 2014.

Pivothead notes that the SDK will provide access for developers to create a wide range of applications that will be able to capitalize on the interactivity that takes place between Pivothead SMART and other wirelessly connected devices such as smartphones and smartwatches. Additionally, advanced analytic-driven Android (News - Alert) applications can be run directly on the glasses with the use of the Air Mod.

The Mods connect through the eyewear frames (note in the image shown below the rear ends of both sides of the frame – those are Mods). At launch there will be three of them available – FUEL, AIR and LIVE Mods, each of which provide, of course, different capabilities. Two of the Mods are shown below.

Pivothead founder and president, Christopher Cox (News - Alert) notes that, "Building a product that provides superior imaging quality was the paramount objective in our first generation and it remains so with our second generation SMART glasses. When you combine the high powered imaging performance of Pivothead SMART with features like true point-of-view HD Live Streaming and second device software interactivity, you have a product that can transform not only how we capture and share our lives, but also how we do our jobs. The professional applications are endless and we're excited to engage with the developer community to build on this disruptive platform."

By now you may perhaps be wondering how the Pivothead SMART compares to Google (News - Alert) Glass. We’ll post below a handy chart – yes, it was created by Pivothead, so the usual caveats apply – but it is a very interesting set of comparison points.

All in all it is a rather impressive collection of features. One thing to note is the heads up display (HUD) comparison. It is here of course that Google delivers its major features. According to Cox, Pivothead's decision to use audio and an LED light-rail to convey heads-up information to the wearer, as opposed to using the sort of heads-up display (HUD) found in Google Glass, is a reflection of Pivothead's core values.

Cox says, "We call Pivothead the Ultimate Life Camera. Our camera glasses are designed to encourage social interaction, active sharing and the effortless documentation of your life in ways previously unimagined, in real time and in full HD. HUD's in their current technological iteration are anti-social in more ways than one and therefore counter to our objectives. We designed a simple method using sensory experience to provide heads up information."

We’re very much looking to catch up with Pivothead at our upcoming FAST (News - Alert) and Wearable Tech events. We will be getting up close and personal with the entire SMART platform then and we look forward to providing a full hands-off review in the near future as well. In the meantime, do check out Pivothead’s SMART IndieGoGo page – there is plenty of additional detail there – perhaps you will become an investor.


Edited by Tony Rizzo