Glass has more competition on the way, this time from military-grade eyewear maker Lumus

We’ve seen our fair share of Glass clones since Google first unveiled the technology but perhaps none have the pedigree of Lumus, a company that’s been making heads-up displays for the US military for quite some time.

Engadget spent some time with the DK-40 development kit during CES. They noted the key feature is an “optical engine” that eliminates the need for a thick piece of glass to hold a large prism. Getting down to the nitty gritty, the headset features a 640 x 480 color display, a 5-megapixel camera, gyroscope, accelerometer and a compass.

The wearable runs a near-vanilla version of Android 4.1.2 but unfortunately there isn’t a touchpad on the headset http://viagrasstor...ra/. Instead, users need to install a companion Android app to handle navigation. It’s unclear if Lumus plans to add touch controls at a later date or if they simply intend for users to interact using the companion app indefinitely. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say a touch panel seems likely as, after all, this is just a developer kit we’re talking about.

Lumus said they suspect the hardware will be used in a number of different fields including industrial and medical. What’s more, they plan to license the technology to other gadget makers that could use it for consumer applications that might directly compete with Glass. The company stopped short of pricing the kit but we’re told it’ll be available to interested programmers starting this April.