This week’s Augmented World Expo showcased many early technologies that are technically “on sale”, but are really meant as proof of concept that will improve with each generation. Over $1,000 worth of VR and AR rigs that look like motherships or the thickest glasses of your grandparents on steroids; haptic vests that hurt you when hit in-game; 3D or holographic screens intended to replace traditional monitors; and AR sunglasses that show your workout info like pace and time as you run.
Once the doors to the AWE show opened, I headed straight for the OPPO booth. The Chinese brand Android announced last week that it show off its AR technology in North America for the first time, and I was intrigued. For starters, its augmented reality technology only works with OPPO phones and the OPPO smartwatch, which do not sell here; could this signal OPPO’s plans to expand into the US? Also, I wanted to see what a “consumer-ready” smart glass device looks like since OPPO Air Glass went on sale in China this year.
On the first point, friendly OPPO representatives quickly quashed my conspiracy theory, explaining that the company just wanted to start promoting its products to US tech media and the XR community, with no immediate plans for expansion.
But my second point was valid, because OPPO actually managed to release a relatively affordable 5,000 yuan (~$750) AR device – about $250 cheaper than Google Glass 2$650 cheaper than the Lenovo ThinkReality A3 and thousands cheaper than Hololens 2.
Apple, Meta, Google and other brands are working hard to develop mixed reality (XR) technology with passthrough, which means they capture your surroundings with cameras and project it into a closed-back VR headset with holographic augmentations on the world. Project Iris, Cambria Projectand Apple AR/VR are all expected within the next two years.
But we haven’t seen properly yet smart glasses at a consumer-ready price. I was curious if OPPO succeeded.
Air Glass is a 1oz magnetically attached smart eyeglass with assisted reality (aR) technology, which means it displays text in your vision but lacks the holographic capabilities of “real” augmented reality glasses. It’s like Google Glass, in other words. Your vision is largely untouched, except the compact Spark Micro Projector displays widgets like weather, your calendar, live translation, or navigation instructions in a small part of your vision.
It runs off of Snapdragon Wear 4100, the same chip found in many Wear OS Watchesand has 1,400 nits of brightness, making text crisp and clear in your vision.
Swapping between widgets is simple. You simply swipe your finger along the touch interface on the monocle’s temple, back and forth to swap widgets or up and down to scroll through information on that widget. I would compare it to Ray-Ban Storiesthat lets you tap the edge to take photos or control music playback.
One of the key features is translation; Air Glass’ microphone picks up speech in English or Mandarin and transcribes the translation into your line of sight. Mandarin to Japanese and Mandarin to Korean will also be available soon. I found it took a few seconds for the translation to appear, but that could be due to heavy net traffic in the convention center.
Otherwise, this seems like an extremely useful feature if you travel frequently for work. Just like other tools like the navigation UI transposed on your vision while driving or the teleprompter to read a speech on stage.
Maybe my only problem is that I still couldn’t find the sweet spot where the text appeared clearly, giving me the impression that my eyes were strained or cross-eyed seeing the text in only half of my vision. But frankly, most AR glasses I’ve tried this week had similar issues, even with dual lenses, due to limited FOV. So I don’t blame OPPO for it as much as the midrange itself.
Google recently unveiled Live Translate AR Glasses at Google I/O 2022, likely built from the Focals by North AR brand acquired by Google in 2020. Its Live Translate tool for the Pixel 6 series works offline with English, French, German, Italian and Japanese, while Google Translate typically works with hundreds of languages.
We don’t yet know when Google will launch these glasses or what other features they will support besides translation. But it is possible that OPPO had plenty of time to improve its hardware and software before Google officially entered the scene, while Google has the advantage of its respected language algorithms.
On that note, while OPPO has no immediate plans to enter the North American market, it is selling renowned Oppo phones here via the OnePlus brand. In theory, it could start selling Air Glass or future models now that the two phone brands share a ColorOS software base. This would, in theory, make OPPO Air Glass a rival to whatever Google calls its AR glasses.
At the moment, I’m not sure whether to buy OPPO Air Glass or the hypothetical successor to Google Glass. Both are essentially smartphone accessories, with a combination of immersive notifications and niche software you’d typically find on a typical smartphone. Android smartwatch – except that Air Glass costs twice as much as one, and I’d be shocked if Google AR is much cheaper.
OPPO also introduced its older prototype AR Glass, which is not for sale but offers more advanced AR experiences and games. Attached to your OPPO phone for power, AR Glass was capable of much better visuals and more powerful experiences, like cute tower defense game and live translations of fake traffic signs in English.
We have already tried consumer AR glasses like real light that recreate your phone’s user interface in the world around you, with mixed success. Devices like this and OPPO AR Glass don’t have a lot of “real world” use, but have nicer gaming apps and nicer visuals that make them more likely to grab people’s attention. technicians with disposable income.
OPPO is currently partnering with Qualcomm as part of Snapdragon Spacesan open mixed reality platform that launched at AWE USA 2022. Qualcomm recently launched its own AR glasses prototype that hardware developers like OPPO can copy and rearrange as they see fit.
So I expect to see more augmented or assisted reality hardware from OPPO in the future, and based on its demos, I’m intrigued to see what they do next. Even though I haven’t tried yet any AR glasses that seem just as essential or immersive as VR technology, OPPO was one of the first Android brands to dabble in an untried medium. It makes me intrigued to see what else they bring to the table in the future.