Meet “Ahead” — A New Wearable Display
Is Samsung Ahead similar to Google Glass?
Recently a patent filed in Korea by a giant tech multinational company surfaced in the Tech world.
Looking like a heavily modified set of eye glasses, it includes a camera, an in-vision projector and a sound system rolled into one. This is not Google, and it’s not Google Glass… this is Samsung and it’s called ‘Samsung Ahead’.
A product from Samsung’s C-Labs, Ahead could find use in many places — construction, sports, bikers to suggest just a few. While Google Glass has had it’s share of affection and criticism, it has proved clearly though, that eye-based wearables, done right are product of merit.
Consequently, ever since Google Glass burst onto the scene three years ago, there have been consistent rumours of similar devices from other manufacturers and Samsung itself has been long-rumoured to have a rival product, but we never came across any solid evidence.
This new patent filing from Samsung could point to Samsung’s hat in the Wearables ring.
The patent, discovered by the Wall Street Journal, was filed in April 2016 and is labelled as being similar to “sports glasses”. A trademark has been filed for a product called “Ahead”. It is described as a wearable computer “in the shape of a helmet”.
The patent says Ahead is made for the fast lives of people nowadays and takes the form of a small triangular device that attaches to any helmet via magnets, and enables the user to communicate (make calls, listen to notifications) and use media over bluetooth, during workouts, and control their phone when their hands are busy.
It is speculated that another version will include “Push to Talk’.
Samsung Ahead, will have its own operating system, bear a display, include MP3 functions and much more.
As the details available are very vague and general, we don’t know with certainty what this device will do or look like, except that the device is a wearable paired with a display that is transparent or translucent with the graphics available to just one eye. The device acts as a companion to your smartphone while you operate it hands free.
This is a simple move — like the ones Samsung has made numerous times before, to prepare space for the company to enter a particular technology field, even if other players have been there for a long time. It’s also worth noting that this is a Korean patent, in Samsung’s home market, which makes it a little unusual as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and many others are also considering headsets and localising the patent to just the Korean market seems like a little underwhelming estimation of customer interest.
Since device details have neither been released yet nor have proper specifications yet been shared with the market, the limited information leads us to predict that Ahead will provide competition to the already-existing wearable glasses in the market, but we can’t say for sure where all the applicability of this device lies.. thus it is difficult to estimate the ripples this wearable could make in a marketplace that has already rejected Google’s own invention that intended to play in a very similar space.
For now, we can just wait and look forward to more information before we assess this device and it’s promise.
Originally published at Chip-Monks.
