North stops production of Focals smart health connected glasses to focus on Focals 2

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A year ago, start-up North launched a pair of smart health connected glasses called Focals. Offered for $ 999, then quickly lowered to 600, the Focals take the form of classic eyeglasses plus a small screen able to disseminate various information. These are retrieved from a smartphone via a Bluetooth connection.

It is not therefore an augmented reality strictly speaking. The Canadian start-up announces Wednesday, December 11, 2019 that it puts an end to the production and sale of this first model to focus on a more successful version, called Focals 2 – whose output is now already announced for 2020.

with the focal 2, it goes or it breaks

For now, not much is filtered about this future successor. The visual revealed by the company seems to indicate that the design of the glasses will not undergo any major change. With the further miniaturization of the technologies, made 40% more compact, the Focals 2 should be lighter … while embedding a screen "ten times net". Not insignificant improvements for user comfort, without which the start-up can not expect a large-scale deployment. Especially since the Focals, the first of the name, had the enormous constraint of having to be specially adjusted to their wearer … and were often sold only through showrooms.

North boasts no less than "the most sophisticated glasses ever designed". In fact, the company plays big. If it stops prematurely the marketing of its first model, it is because this one probably did not find its public. On paper, his promise is beautiful: create highly technological glasses, interesting for connoisseurs as well as for the general public. Note that the start-up will be able to count on 230 patents bought back to Intel, when this one left his project Vaunt.

But it has not yet transformed the Review, as proof of the suppression of 150 jobs last February. A measure which she had then justified as necessary for "finance the maintenance of the pace of development over 18 to 24 months" – the time to release his second model. Last point to consider: if North is now alone in the market, other players of weight – namely Snap or Facebook – are interested in it.

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