Australia is being used as a testing ground for tap and pay technology sunglasses. This summer the glasses will premiere at the Laneway Music festivals in the capital cities. WaveShades is a new contactless payment system built into sunglasses. This cool new way to pay was born from a partnership between Australian startup Inamo, sunglasses-maker Local Suppy and Visa.
The Australian market was identified as a perfect place to test the technology due to the high adoption of tap and pay by the banks and a willingness to use tap and pay with the public.
A waterproof, contactless payment system is built into a device that is widely worn by the public makes a lot of sense. There may be issues around the fact that many of us lose sunglasses and they are easy to snatch off the person wearing them. The classes look cool and do protect the wearers eyes from the harsh sun, but will the technology be embraced? Tap and pay already exists on iPhones and by using a credit or debt card. In reality the functionality will need to stack up against an already well-developed ecosystem.
“Using Inamo’s technology in sunglasses is a logical extension of our mission to move people’s wallets to a wearable,” Inamo founder and CEO Peter Colbert said in a statement.
For those of you heading to the Laneway festivals this summer, let us know, how do the glasses stack up?
