Google Glass Titanium Collection brings frames for prescription lenses, shades

Google Glass is a mobile device you wear sort of like a pair of glasses by placing resting the frame across your ears and the bridge of your nose. But what if you want to use Glass with a real pair of glasses? Google is now making that possible thanks to the introduction of the Titanium Collection.

Folks who are part of the Glass Explorer program can choose from four different light-weight frames designed to work with Glass. Sunglass frames run $150, while frames for prescription lenses cost $225 and might be covered under some insurance plans. You’ll still need to shell out $1500 for Glass though, at least until Google Glass graduates from an “Explorer Edition” project and becomes a real consumer-oriented device.

The new frames are made from titanium and come in curve, thin, split, or bold styles. They look pretty good, and they’re designed specifically for Glass — which means that one side of the frames is taken up by Google’s wearable device.

You’ll be able to take the frames to an optometrist to get the clear lenses that come with it swapped out for prescription lenses. Or you could just use the whole kit with non-prescription lenses instead of the original Google Glass frames — they actually kind of look better than the original, and it actually seems a lot less geeky to wear a mobile computer on your head if you’ve already got a pair of frames strapped to your face for a more socially acceptable reason — even if you’re faking it.

But Glass has a long way to go before it becomes a mainstream product. Not only is the price tag pretty high and the utility of the product pretty limited for now… but you still have to contend with the stigma of being the person who may constantly be paying attention to the internet instead of a conversation partner… or videotaping on the sly.

While Glass is modular, which means you could unscrew it from the frame, Google isn’t offering a replacement part that lets you use the glasses without Google Glass — so if you plan to go to the movies, you’ll probably want to have a separate pair of glasses that don’t have a camera embedded.

via The Verge