Augmented reality (AR) has plenty of potential yet no company has truly managed to harness it just yet. The latest endeavour to do so comes from Chinese tech giant Xiaomi. In a new bid to kick start AR, Xiaomi reveals new AR glasses, the catchy Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition.
Unveiled during Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Spain, the Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 Platform. That’s the same one running Quest Pro.
Connecting wirelessly to a smartphone, Xiaomi’s AR Glasses boast a pair of MicroOLED screens and “free-form light-guiding prisms”. Combined with a PPD (pixels per degree) rating of 58, there shouldn’t be any noticeable screendoor effect, the company states.
Weighing in at a reasonable 126g, the AR glasses have a few neat tricks up their sleeve. One is an adaptive display that adjusts to the lighting environment, automatically dimming when you need to focus on the virtual world. All housed within a magnesium-lithium alloy, carbon fibre body and powered by an in-house-developed silicon-oxygen anode battery. No details yet on the battery capacity or how long it’ll last between charges.
Another is its control scheme. The glasses use hand-tracking gesture recognition, enabling one-handed operation. Flick through digital pages with your thumb, pinch and drag objects around, and resize windows to suit your viewing needs.
All of this works in conjunction with Qualcomm Spaces, the company’s platform for driving XR devices.
Details regarding availability and pricing have yet to be revealed. Don’t expect it to be wallet-friendly, plus you’ll need a compatible smartphone to get the most out of the AR glasses.
Love AR? Would you buy the Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition? Let us know in the comments below.