Epiphany Eyewear – A Stylish And Cheaper Glass Alternative

If one of the strongest arguments against you buying Google Glass is fashion or looks related, then you don’t have it anymore. Quora released the product line Epiphany Eyewear, a cheaper and much cooler alternative to Google’s device.

The major difference between the two devices, is that while Glass strides to be an innovative and futuristic looking device, the Epiphany glasses are regular looking glasses or sunglasses that have a tiny camera lens integrated in the frame, only visible when taking a closer look.

Quora’s Epiphany Eyewear come packing versions of 32 GB, 16 GB or 8 GB internal storage memory, with prices from $300 to $500, depending on which version you choose to acquire. As a downside, it cannot do everything Glass could, however by slightly touching a small button located on the side of the frame, you can record videos that can be uploaded on your user online account. Photos are excluded, however you could extract some still shots from the videos, using the Epiphany specially created software.

The Quora Company was founded in 2011 by John Rodriguez and Erick Miller, coincidentally or not, right before Google announced the Glass Project. At the time, Miller was a graduating student at UCLA and Epiphany glasses were part of his work inside the university. Building the device, took him a lot of time and nearly all of his life savings.

The two co-founders launched the Indiegogo campaign to market their product and were soon joined by Quora co-founder, Charlie Cheever and by Tim Draper, who opened a fund to support Epiphany Eyewear. In the present, the company’s headquarter is located in Palo Alto and Miller said that the current device version can record nearly two hours continuously.

During a recent interview, Miller was asked what he believed about Google launching a similar device and his response was that Google copying startups is no longer a surprise.

Epiphany Eyewear is not available in retail stores, as their sales are now customer oriented. However, we did see big retail names such as Wearables.com and Walmart Labs talking to Miller during the South By Southwest Interactive conference held in Austin this year, interested in commercializing the product line, but we didn’t see any recent result for that.

As we told you before, Epiphany glasses doesn’t have an app based software and cannot take photos like Glass. Also, you can’t use it as a notification center or command it by voice. Other from that, it’s perfect for taking videos and its specifications are similar to those of a GoPro camera and as Miller says, the Epiphany Eyewear has been successfully worn by sports fans, runway models or by on-field reporters.