North’s Focals 2.0 smart glasses are lighter, sleeker and coming in 2020 [Update: Cancelled]

North, the Canadian company behind Focals, has announced that its next generation of smart glasses, simply called Focals 2.0.

The company has been working on making their technology even smaller and Focals 2.0 is 40% lighter and sleeker than the original. Focals 2.0 also comes with an improved retinal display that is 10x sharper than before.

“The first generation of Focals marked the evolution of traditional glasses to smart glasses, with a considered design representing the first true everyday smart glasses available on the market,” said Stephen Lake, CEO and co-founder of North. “Focals 2.0 are at a completely different level, as the most advanced smart glasses ever made. They represent an enormous step forward in engineering the future. We spent the last year in the market learning how to build, sell and support smart glasses with our first-generation product, that we now will combine with over five years of research working on the technology upgrades in Focals 2.0.”

Since the company has begun work on Focals 2.0, the first-gen Focals are being discontinued.

“Focals 2.0 is such an incredible step forward and we are gearing up to bring to market at scale,” said CTO and co-founder Matthew Bailey. “Since launching Focals last fall, we have consistently updated the product experience and will continue to add new features and functionality to our first product generation as we build to our launch of 2.0.”

You can sign up to be notified when Focals 2.0 launcher on the company’s website.

Update: Since being acquired by Google in June 2020, Focals 2.0 has been cancelled, as the team is joining Google’s Kitchener-Waterloo team.

Source: Focals