If the Galaxy Gear smartwatch isn’t your style, perhaps you’d be interested in a Samsung-branded Google Glass alternative. Another rumor has surfaced indicating that Samsung is creating its own heads-up display to rival the likes of its search engine giant competitor.
The Galaxy smartphone maker recently filed a design patent in Korea that depicts eyewear categorized as “sports glasses,” the Wall Street Journal reports. According to text within the filing, this device would come with integrated earphones so that wearers could answer phone calls and listen to music as they work out.
MORE: Google Glass: What Explorers Love and Hate
Similar to Glass and other heads-up displays, the Samsung headset would be tied to your smartphone to display notifications and messages in your line of vision. The device’s functionality sounds similar to that of Google Glass, but Samsung’s eyewear appears to be targeted at athletes and exercise enthusiasts.
The patent filing comes just a few weeks after Russian tech blogger Eldar Murtazin tweeted that Samsung was developing a Google Glass competitor, however Murtazin didn’t name his sources. According to Murtazin, Samsung would launch this device in April or May under the Galaxy Gear branding.
This seems plausible, considering the company could time the launch of its next major wearable tech product to coincide with a new smartphone such as the Galaxy S5. Samsung hasn’t confirmed any information about its future products, but since the Galaxy S4 launched last spring we wouldn’t be too surprised if its successor turned up about one year later.
Samsung is just one of several tech industry giants delving into the wearable space. Along with Sony, it’s among the first of today’s major smartphone makers to launch a smartwatch, while other companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and Nokia only have patents for such technology. The wearable technology market is expected to surge in just 5 years, raking in $19 billion in revenue by 2018, according to Gartner. By 2020, about 373 million wearable devices are expected to be shipped according to NextMarketInsights, compared to the 15 million shipments projected for 2014.
