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Wireless Bluetooth Sunglasses

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Jan 17, 2005 06:00 PM
from the because-you-can dept.
Wireless Networking Hardware
elecngnr writes "Motorola and Oakley are going to team up to create Bluetooth enabled sunglasses. At the CES, Motorola had also announced that they would be developing some bluetooth embedded clothing with Burton, a snowboarding company. " Speakers built into the hood, and controls built into the jacket for your audio player and phone.
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  • i wonder (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dJOEK (66178) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:01PM (#11389269)
    What instructions are there on the laundry tab ?

    is this even washable ?

    • Re:i wonder (Score:3, Funny)

      by l0ungeb0y (442022)
      "What instructions are there on the laundry tab ?"

      Not sure about Windows users, but for those with OSX 10.2 and greater it should read: "Hand Wash in iSync or iClean only"

      har har har.

    • Re:i wonder (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      one word,

      removable

      its in the article...

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by svvampy (576225) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:02PM (#11389275)
    Because the manufacturers need another reason to charge you two hundred dollars for five cents worth of plastic?
    • They don't seem to know what they want these glasses to do. Maybe play music. Maybe something else. Regardless, preorder today!
  • Will the glasses black out if a Microsoft product comes on screen? Or will they turn blue?

  • MP3 Player built in? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ashpool7 (18172) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:05PM (#11389308) Homepage Journal
    Call me back when you've got a bluetooth HUD or something. The MP3 player can sit in my pocket.
    • A HUD was my first thought, but TFA was (very) short on details and mentions only the MP3 player. Without a HUD, bundling a visual device with an audio one seems less like a convenience and more like a fashion statement. There are situations where I'd take off my sunglasses and leave on my headphones, so I suspect they're not looking to target the Bat Utility Belt generation so much as the grande Star-Schmucks quaffing jogger who wants everyone to see how hip and trendy they are.

  • Bluetooth clothing? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mudcathi (584851) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:09PM (#11389339) Journal
    Does this mean I have to worry about hackers turning my socks into spam zombies?

  • Important Safety Tip (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ScentCone (795499) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:09PM (#11389341)
    snowboarding

    I was just thinking that what attitude-is-everything people racing down an icy Pennsylvania hill, weaving through other people on a slippery, metal-edged plank and attempting to periodically sail through the air need is an easier way to block their senses.
    • need is an easier way to block their senses.

      To danger, anyway. What'd be neat is if they went black when anything threatening came by. We could set up anything dangerous to emit bluetooth "danger" signals....

      • Or perhaps a better idea would be if this was some sort of Bluetooth HUD, as someone up the discussion suggested. Overlay a topographic map of the run on the lenses and indicate when there's a tree waiting in a bend on the other side of a hill you're about to fly over. Maybe you'd zig where you'd otherwise zag and not fataly tenderize yourself against it.

    • Re:Important Safety Tip (Score:5, Funny)

      by AndroidCat (229562) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:32PM (#11389509) Homepage
      Sure. "Hi! Yeah, I'm on the snowboard. Hang on, I'm about to Bono this tree..."
      • Maybe the Bluetooth-enabled helmet is a better idea than the jacket for actual snowborders.
        • It's satire. His point is that yukapucks who jabber on their cellular Oakley's are going to deserve exactly what they get. Other than the people who walked back out onto the beach to see what the tsunami was all about as the water did insane things, most of the people who died in Asia didn't die because they were being careless, or doing something that is, on the face of it, inherently reckless. I'm sure you think the Darwin Awards are mean, too. You've got to do a better job with your analogies, or you won
    • I was thinking about a slightly different safety issue - we have a smallish object (speaker) intended to be held close to the skull. It is in clothing intended for use at high speed on an unstable platform in the presence of hard objects (rocks, trees.)

      I don't know enough about snowboarding gear or this product to say whether it is an extra hazard. (Do snowboarders wear helmets? Is the speaker a small, hard object ready to be imbedded in the skull, or a wide rigid object that adds helmet-like protection?)

  • The goggles! They do nothing! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yaztromo (655250) <yaztromo@NOSPAM.jsyncmanager.org> on Monday January 17 2005, @06:09PM (#11389342) Homepage Journal

    And Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses do what exactly? Unfortunately, the article doesn't say. I'm guessing they're going to provide an audio output facility, but who knows for sure?

    I'm off to install a Bluetooth chip into my toilet. What is it going to do? Damned if I know, but one things for sure -- /. front page, here I (and my Bluetooth-enabled toilet) come!

    Yaz
    (...who actually has and uses two Bluetooth devices).

  • Auto dry? Auto fit? Auto lace? If it ain't up to McFly's standards, it ain't worth purchasing.


  • my ipod fits perfectly in my pocket. my head phones are pretty much invisible. why put this in clothes that i'll forget to take out when I wash it. I always hate when new technology comes out and mfg's try to tag it on to every product they have to make it sell.

  • While Bluetooth 1.1 does not have enough bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)

    by Karpe (1147) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:10PM (#11389350) Homepage
    for uncompressed "CD quality" audio, what enables these new headphones and this new sunglasses are the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile [holtmann.org], which compresses the audio using the low complexity lossless Sub-Band Codec [holtmann.org]. These devices usually also support a profile that enables you to play, pause, forward and rewind, or, if paired to a telephone too, to mute the audio when a call is received. This all seems very nice, I just wish these profiles get supported in Tiger (and Longhorn, or Windows XP new Bluetooth stack, to be fair). Can't wait to get some more wireless audio.

  • Lawsuit alert (Score:4, Funny)

    by John3 (85454) <john3@cor n e l ls.com> on Monday January 17 2005, @06:11PM (#11389357) Homepage Journal
    Motorola and Oakley better check with their legal departments...Suntiger Inc. [suntiger.com] might try and sue to protect their intellectual property [bannerwitcoff.com] for "blue blocking sunglasses" which sounds eerily similar to "blue tooth technology".

  • Dept. of redundancy dept. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2005, @06:13PM (#11389365)
    Wireless Bluetooth?

    did I miss a meeting?

  • Bluetooth radius (Score:3, Funny)

    by Handbrewer (817519) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:13PM (#11389369) Homepage
    If i walk outside my bluetooth radius, i become scared and confused.

  • Interference! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Line_Fault (247536) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:16PM (#11389390) Homepage
    What a great product! Now everyone can cause WLAN interference without even trying!

    • Bluetooth is incredibly low power, and operates on a different frequencly from WLAN. Also, the peer-to-peer style network topology means that two BT networks in the same area will share the bandwidth rather than interfere with each other.

      You'd have to get a lot of devices into a small area before interference would become a big problem.
      • Bluetooth operates on the same 2.4 to 2.5 GHZ ISM band as "b" and "g" networking, but it is split into something kike 79 non-overlapping channels rather than three non-overlapping channels. I don't know if any reciever allows you to choose, or tries to avoid detected interference though.

        It shouldn't interfere, but with a bluetooth mouse next to a bluetooth reciever AND a WLAN reciever within a foot of each other, sometimes I notice a greater lag on the g card.

  • Imagine... (Score:3, Funny)

    by graveyardduckx (735761) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:16PM (#11389395)
    A beowulf cluster of people wearing similar sunglasses... Ok, that even creeps me out.

  • They are Stylish!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by djplurvert (737910) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:22PM (#11389435)
    Oh yeah baby, that's Stylish with a BIG S.

    Take a gander here [oakley.com] at the mp3 version. Don't be fooled by the photography, these babies are BULBOUS! I think they're going for the cyborg look.

    All I know for sure is that when I say them in compusa I just couldn't stop laughing.

    I can't imagine using those things snowboarding. They look like they'd fly off with one quick turn of the head. I like lightweight and simple glasses for boarding. They WILL come off your face, unless of course, you are much better than me and NEVER find yourself yardsailing down the slope. Did I mention that they look like shit.
    • Yea, they are pretty ugly. But look at the guy wearing them. Are those his real teeth? Maybe those caps are part of the antenna. God, I hope not, the guy looks like some reject from a hip-hop video
    • Shit I sell Oakley products and we just got these in stock. These things are more expensive then an iPod.The 256mb model are almost $550.00.

    • Re:They are Stylish!!! (Score:2, Informative)

      by djtripp (468558)
      I couldn't snowboard with sunglasses, I much prefer wearing goggles. I do like Oakley, but I would lump the Thump and the Over the Top in the Never would ever wear category. I do like the Tuneups II [giro.com] ear pieces that Giro has created for the their helmets. Much better idea, and a whole lot cheaper. Couple that with the Burton jacket and iPod, and I would be in snowboarding heaven. Also flip up sunglasses are retarded, unless you are playing baseball.
    • I would just like to point out that Motorola's existing bluetooth headsets are very small and lightweight so it's not fair to automatically assume the resulting sunglasses will be as large as the MP3 player sunglasses.

      Then again, the Apple iPod Shuffle is tiny too. And once you chew it up like a piece of gum I'm sure it's downright miniscule*.


      * Don't swallow the chewed up iPod Shuffle. It will stay in your stomach for 7 years.

      • Speakers in the hood?

        Ok, I'm NOT a good boarder, I'm just some guy who likes the snow. I don't go very fast, maybe 30mph tops and that's really just guessing based on my more experienced bike riding sense of speed. At ANY speed that I go there is SO much ambient noise in my hood that I can't imagine that I'd be able to hear much of anything. Now, for the sit and smoke pot in between each pipe run crowd, that might just work.

        Like burton needs another excuse to make overpriced clothing. The ONLY thing yo

  • More Ways To Become Distracted (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Uosdwis (553687) on Monday January 17 2005, @06:24PM (#11389442) Journal
    Yeah this is a good idea.

    First we complain about drivers being distracted with phones while on the road. Just wait till we have skiers/boarders doing the same [9news.com]. Not being able to hear when you are listening to your iPod is really safe [thedenverchannel.com]
    • Uh, why did you link to a story about a skiier dying after being hit by a snowmobile? It mentions headphones in one paragraph but immeadiately rules them out. I'm sure there are some much better examples of driver distraction accidents.
  • Mr. Clowes, your hi-fi pizza is ready. Mr. Clowes [fantagraphics.com], dial 432 for pickup.

  • Sunglasses??? Motorola? (Score:4, Funny)

    by zymurgyboy (532799) <zymurgyboy@ y a h o o . com> on Monday January 17 2005, @07:04PM (#11389848)
    Great. So now I can go from being the dork with the tiny Jabra headset who appears to be talking to himself, to being the scary sunglasses-all-the-time Matrix agent who appears to be talking to himself.

    DAMN YOU bluetooth device people!

  • Burton? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AmiMoJo (196126) <mojo.world3@net> on Tuesday January 18 2005, @08:08AM (#11393816) Homepage
    In the UK, Burton sell suits and chav (google for it) clothing. Since people are embarassed to be chavs, Motorola may want to re-think their partnership!

    PS. I know about Burberry too. Seeing the business news report that their sales were down due to people being too embarrased to wear their clothes cracked me up.

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