Canadian wearables manufacturer Recon Instruments‘ next product is ready for prime time and it has a new partner to help it widen its market appeal.
The company announced this week a partnership with APX Labs, a Herndon, Virginia-based startup that specializes in creating enterprise software for smart glasses.
Together, they are bringing the Recon Jet, a smart glasses product targeted initially at athletes to the enterprise.
“We’ve built the Recon Jet for high-intensity environments,” said Jay Kim, chief technology officer at APX Labs. “We target a pretty broad industry and have seen some success in manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, logistics and field service.”
Kim explained that in these industries where assembly or manufacturing may be part of the job description, freeing a worker’s hands from a portable device is a big advantage.
With APX’Â Skylight software platform built into the Recon Jet, companies would be able to both push and pull data, tasks and instructions from various data points to the user as well as make use of the device’s connectivity and enterprise tools. Â Additionally, the device allows for voice and touch controls, and has a camera to read labels and more.
In terms of specs, it comes with a 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, 1 GB SDRAM and 8 GB of flash storage, various accelerometers and gyroscopes, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and Micro USB 2.0, and what the company claims to be a a widescreen 16:9 WQVGA display showing a virtual HD image of 30 inches at seven feet.
While the Jet would be among several devices in the Skylight ecosystem, it will come with different software depending on whether it’s being sold to consumers or the enterprise.
And although Recon is currently selling direct, it is actively looking for channel partners to help it bring the product to the enterprise.  On its website, it’s priced at $699 per unit.
Units are slated to ship March 31.
