Along with MariSilicon X, Oppo has officially presented Oppo Air Glass at INNO Day 2021 — its first “assisted reality” glasses.
Calling them “glasses” is not really accurate, as they are not actual glasses. The Oppo Air Glass is a device that is fitted to the temple of our regular glasses, and that has a Spark microprojector developed by Oppo to project information in front of our eyes.
The smart device is equipped with a cutting-edge micro-LED and a special diffraction optical waveguide display. The Oppo Air Glass allows for four different user interactions — through touch, voice, head movement and hand movement — allowing users to have faster and easier access to the information they need.
The company offers a minimalist and very elegant design. The set weighs 30 grams and, according to the Chinese firm, it can be worn like a normal pair of glasses. In this body (manufactured with CNC) we find the battery, the speaker, the processor (a Snapdragon Wear 4100 ) and the Spark microprojector.
The main body design features a touch bar that resembles an elegant feather ensemble. The waveguide monocular lens design is inspired by cicadas’ wings, going against the usual and conventional rectangular or rounded lens designs on eyewear.
This in-house developed Spark Microprojector by Oppo is only 0.5cc in size, roughly the size of a coffee bean, and is one of the most compact projection systems in the industry. The projector features a CNC metal casing with a glass lens module to provide better heat dissipation and stability. The projector is powered by a state-of-the-art Micro LED, with a brightness of up to 3 million nits.
The Oppo Air Glass adopts a custom-made optical diffraction waveguide, supporting two display modes — 16-level and 256-level grayscale — and can provide up to 1400 nits of average brightness, ensuring a vivid and sharp display in different light conditions. According to Oppo, two layers of sapphire crystal are used to coat the waveguide on both sides, thus offering more transparency and resistance.
Oppo affirms that the Oppo Air Glass can withstand up to three hours of uninterrupted use on a single charge. In standby mode, that is, carrying them passively, the battery lasts up to 30 hours.
Regarding the control, they can be controlled with the Smart Glass app through any Oppo smartphone with ColorOS 11 and even through the Oppo Watch 2. Although Oppo is launching an SDK that will allow developers to create apps for the glasses, there are already several in the works.
The Oppo Air Glass will be launched in the first quarter of 2022 in the Chinese market.
