Google Glass may be on hiatus while an updated product is developed, but scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering believe they have an alternative that significantly improves on the tech giant’s design, while also correcting farsightedness.

Described by its inventors as “see-through data glasses”, the technology has a similar design to the infamous AR eyewear, but has much smaller optics, enabling it to be embedded into conventional glasses with more subtlety than other models.

“This allows us to obtain the same results with a much shorter structure,” said Dr Peter Schreiber, Fraunhofer IOF group manager of the Microoptical Systems department. “We designed our glasses to be small and discreet.”

It also differs from other AR glasses in the way it projects data.

While most designs require the wearer to look up and to the right, these glasses allow data to be projected to whatever position is most appropriate, something its designers believe will be beneficial for travel apps that provide information about key sights and monuments.

The glasses’ smaller size is a potentially significant feature, as bulky design has been one of the biggest turn-off for potential users.

Smart glasses typically combine two elements to display the data in front of the wearer’s eye: the micro-display, responsible for generating the image, and the optics, which projects it to the selected position.

On this design, the micro-display is fairly standard for smart glasses, measuring 8mm by 15mm, but the optics are, according to Fraunhofer, only a fifth of the size of other models, at just 5mm long.

This significant cut in size is achieved by replacing the conventional single long optics with an array of much smaller optics placed alongside each other.

The display also features a nanoscale lattice structure applied onto a glass plate, which enables light to be guided onto any part of the wearer’s field of view. The result is that information can be projected in relation to real-world locations, rather than always being fixed at the top right.

“In short: the optical image is coupled into the light guide through a lattice, guided to the required position, coupled back out through a lattice there, and reflected into the wearer’s field of view,” explained the Institute in a release about the technology.

Perhaps one of the more interesting features is the ability to correct farsightedness, something that Google Glass did not claim to do, although some wearers did report improved near-vision from the device.

This is controlled by a Bluetooth-connected smartphone, through which users enter their vision data, and the glasses correct accordingly. There is, according to Fraunhofer, even partial correction of other vision defects, such as shortsightedness and astigmatism.

“Our multi-channel approach compensates for farsightedness without any moving mechanical parts, such as the adjustable eyepiece in binoculars, and to set the focus for each wearer by purely electronic means,” added Schreiber.

Whether the device makes it onto the faces of consumers remains to be seen, but Schreiber believes that scaling to full manufacture would be very straightforward.

“The manufacturing methods are suitable for large-scale production and are already used in the industry, so making the glasses is easy and cost-effective,” he said.

However, with smart glasses yet to produce a true hit, there is no guarantee that this version would be successful.

Battery size, still a key contributor to the bulk of such frames, has not been addressed by the new device, and integrating it into frames in an attractive way remains a challenge.

But for those that remain hopeful that smart glasses will take off, the technology is a very promising step.