When you talk about smart glasses the vast majority of people think of Google (News - Alert), and that is a very big hurdle to overcome if you are a company trying to break into this niche sector. Even Google, with its billions of dollars and access to the brightest minds took what seemed forever to make its Glass available for consumers. Now that it is available, it is not very clear how things are going in regards to sales because the cost puts it out of the range of many consumers, and that might be the entry for new companies looking to launch their own smart glasses. Optinvent, a startup with multiple patented international technologies and 20 years of know-how in the field of near to eye display products (digital eyewear, AR Glasses, wearable display, see-through HMD), has launched a KickStarter campaign  for its ORA Smart Glasses, which it says is more advanced than Google Glass at a fraction of the price.

The price of the ORA-X should grab the attention of anyone looking for an affordable alternative to the wearable technology Google is offering, which can go upwards of $2,000. During the KickStarter campaign, the first 100 backers will get the ORA Glass for $300 and it will go up to $399 once it becomes available for sale, making it one of the most affordable smart glasses in the market place.

The company has released prototypes of the glass to beta customers and developers, which includes an SDK for the development of applications.

Optinvent has proclaimed this a ‘David versus Goliath’ struggle, and is looking for individuals around the world to help it overcome this big hurdle with a product it believes is superior to Google’s offering.

The company has highlighted its disruptive retinal projection technology with nine international patents, which is at the heart of the ORA Glass. Based on molded plastic, the company believes this technology gives it a clear advantage because of the scalability it provides to mass-produce its glass so it can be available to a wider audience at much affordable price points.

The ORA is equipped with a dual core processor w/ GPU, 4GB ROM, camera, microphone, sound, trackpad (mouse and swipe), 9 axis sensors, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, ambient light sensor, photochromic lenses, and a high capacity rechargeable battery. It runs Android (News - Alert) natively, enabling multiple mobile computing and augmented reality (AR) applications.

As of today the campaign has 10 days to go and 198 backers have pledged $74,921 of the $100,000 goal. The company points out the project will only be funded if at least $100,000 is pledged by Tue, Oct 28 2014.