By 
Oppo INNO Day 2021 is here, and along with the all-new MariSilicon X NPU designed to greatly improve smartphone photography, Oppo also debuted its Air Glass. You might be able to derive its purpose from the name, but essentially we have an AR lens that attaches to your existing glasses. Instead of you needing to worry about getting a set of glasses that have the right prescription, these work right along with your existing set of glasses.
The way that the Air Glass works is after it’s been attached to the arm of your glasses, a micro projector is used to overlay the different bits of information. It’s made from two different parts as the frame is home to a speaker while also acting as the housing for the Snapdragon Wear 4100 chipset which provides the power. Then, the lens itself rests in front of your glasses. Essentially, while it may look like something from the future, it provides a heads-up display when then uses the custom-designed microLED projector to show the information.
Oppo states that the lens glass is made from dual-layer sapphire glass, capable of displaying color and grayscale content at up to 1,400 nits of brightness. What helps this stand apart from our beloved Google Glass is that the Air Glass is a bit more friendly when it comes to privacy. That’s because you won’t find a built-in camera anywhere, as that’s not how Oppo wants you to use this AR wearable.
Actually controlling the Air Glass is pretty interesting as well, as you can use voice, head, touch, or hand gestures in order to interact and navigate through the menus. When it comes to compatibility, options are limited, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Oppo states that the Air Glass is compatible with any phone running ColorOS 11, while the hand gestures will only work if you have the Oppo Watch 2. Again, that shouldn’t shock anyone, as these will likely only be made available in China, where Oppo’s customer base is primarily focused.
When Air Glass hits the market, there will be a few different apps that are built-in:
- Weather
- Calendar
- Health
- Navigation
- Teleprompter
But Oppo is also making its Air Glass SDK to developers in an effort to have more apps available around the same time that the Air Glass hits the market. Oppo is even going so far as to make the SDK open source, which is a huge step in the right direction as the company wants to get even more developers on board with the growing AR market.
As for availability, the Oppo Air Glass is set to launch sometime in Q1 of 2022. The company didn’t provide any pricing details, but did say that the Air Glass will be available in either Black or White, and two “custom frame accessories” will be made available at launch.
Comments