Dyson had a Google Glass like prototype over 10 years ago

THE first thing that comes to mind when you see ‘Dyson’ is vacuums, but the company is a lot cooler than that.

WINNIPEG, MB - MAY 21: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales tries on 'Google Glass' spectacles as he visits 'Innovation Alley' on May 21, 2014 in Winnipeg, Canada. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall are on a four day visit to Canada. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

THE first thing that comes to mind when you see ‘Dyson’ is vacuums, but the company was playing around with Google Glass like prototypes years before it even crossed anyone else’s mind.

The Next Web is reporting that in 2001 Dyson started to work on an augmented reality headset that featured a colour 3D display.

It was called Dyson Halo, and sadly never made it past the prototype phase, but the company has finally come out with some information about the device, saying:

“Two plane mirrors reflected the display of two tiny monitors, mounted by your temples, onto a prism. This created an illusion of a projected, translucent, 10-inch display one meter in front of you. The screen showed a series of applications similar to the smartphones of today.”

It even had its own voice assistant, much like Siri, that could work out what you were saying and read out your emails to you.

Another particularly cool feature was the ability to allow virtual objects to be placed with real ones, enabling features like a keyboard that would be projected on any surface, allowing you to type emails straight from your glasses.

Unlike Google Glass, it could also work as a stand-alone PC, allowing you to plug it straight into a monitor to be used like an actual computer that you could interact with using a controller on your wrist.

So why did Dyson give up? To make better vacuums of course.