Augmented actuality firm Nreal is launching a less expensive, iOS-compatible, extra compact model of its good glasses. The brand new Nreal Air glasses are purported to ship beginning in December 2021 throughout Japan, China, and South Korea. The value isn’t set, however Nreal says they’ll price “a fraction of the worth” of its earlier Nreal Mild glasses, which began promoting for round $600 final yr.
Based mostly on Nreal’s description, the brand new Nreal Air glasses have some core similarities with the Nreal Mild glasses from 2020. Each are designed to appear like comparatively regular sun shades and pitched as best for projecting a digital big-screen show in entrance of your eyes. They’re each utilizing micro OLED shows for his or her augmented actuality optics and are powered by a telephone through a tether cable. And so they’re each aimed toward shoppers quite than companies, researchers, or the army.
However Nreal Air glasses have a special characteristic set than their predecessors. Just like Microsoft HoloLens or Magic Leap {hardware}, the unique Nreal Mild glasses might map bodily house round you with a set of outward-facing cameras. Nreal Air glasses, in contrast, don’t have any outward-facing cameras. They’ll show video and telephone apps, however they’ll’t see what’s round you, which suggests they don’t have the spatial consciousness and hand monitoring choices the Nreal Mild does. You’ll management them with a smartphone app, an possibility that’s additionally accessible on Mild glasses.
The upside is that Nreal Air glasses are paradoxically a lot lighter than Mild glasses at 77 grams as a substitute of 106 grams. They don’t have the marginally bug-eyed look that Mild glasses do — in product renders, they give the impression of being extra like Fb and Ray-Ban’s good glasses, minus the front-facing cameras. (The Ray-Ban Tales glasses, which have cameras however no AR show, weigh round 50 grams.) The brand new glasses let customers tilt the lenses at three angles, making it probably simpler for extra individuals to get a clearer picture. Nreal Mild glasses launched with help for particular 5G Android telephones, however the brand new glasses can even work whereas tethered to iPhones and iPads in addition to “most” Android units.
In comparison with the Mild, the Nreal Air glasses even have the next display screen refresh fee of 90Hz and an elevated pixel density of 49 PPD. Nreal says the glasses’ area of view is 46 levels, in comparison with the Nreal Mild’s 52 levels — it equates the Air’s view with a 130-inch display screen from 3 meters away or a 201-inch display screen at 6 meters. If wearers have mates with Nreal glasses, there’s a viewing celebration possibility that turns that display screen right into a shared digital theater the place they’ll all watch the identical media.
Nreal intends to broaden the Air glasses’ rollout in 2022, and a spokesperson says the US is a “main market” for the corporate, though it hasn’t introduced plans to ship there. As with the Mild, it’s going to be promoting the glasses in partnership with main telephone carriers; it hasn’t named particular companions, however it’s beforehand labored with Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, Korea’s LG Uplus, and Japan’s KDDI.
An Nreal spokesperson says the corporate developed the Air after realizing that almost all customers have been primarily both utilizing the glasses to observe streaming video (and to a lesser extent, browse the online) or to develop apps for the platform. In Korea, round 78 p.c of customers watched streaming content material with the glasses. “Customers as we speak are in search of lighter, however longer lasting AR glasses solely for streaming media and dealing from dwelling,” firm founder Chi Xu mentioned in a press release. In line with Nreal, the dearth of cameras can be purported to reassure bystanders that the glasses don’t threaten their privateness.
Nreal is one in all a handful of shopper good glasses, and these outcomes might trace at what individuals really need from AR headsets. However Nreal additionally hasn’t made a concerted play for experiences that blend the actual and digital worlds — a use case that different firms like Fb have emphasised extra closely. As a substitute, it’s specializing in one thing it already is aware of individuals love: binge watching video.
