Oppo declares the Air Glass ‘assisted reality’ device

Oppo has unveiled the Air Glass, an AR device that will be available early next year. The Air Glass is described by Oppo as a “assisted reality” product, rather than an augmented reality device, because it projects 2D information into your field of view rather than superimposing 3D items onto the real world. (It’s a bit like Google Glass.)

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100 CPU powers the Air Glass, which is under 30g (approximately 1oz) in total. It should last 3 hours of active use and 40 hours on standby, according to Oppo. There are two frame designs to choose from: a silver half-frame and a black full-frame, each in two sizes. A magnetic port on the inside of the frame allows it to be linked to more conventional glasses.

The waveguide display uses a tiny projector with Micro LED technology that can produce up to 3 million nits of peak brightness, however Oppo claims that average brightness will be up to 1,400 nits. Touch, speech, hand tracking, and head tracking are all supported, as well as a Smart Glass app on a smartphone running Oppo’s ColorOS 11 or higher.

The Air Glass has a limited set of applications, according to Oppo. It may be used for notifications and directions, as well as teleprompting and real-time translation, according to the company. The display is monochromatic, with either 16 or 256 levels of grayscale depending on the setting, so don’t expect the Air Glass to beam you rich content.

However, it is unlikely to become a mature, widespread product. The Air Glass will be available in a “limited release” in Q1 2022, according to Oppo, and will initially be sold only in mainland China.

The Air Glass was unveiled as part of Oppo’s annual Inno Day celebrations. Oppo also unveiled its own in-house NPU chip, the MariSilicon X, which will be used in the company’s next flagship, the Find X, in the first quarter of next year. Oppo revealed the launch of its first folding phone, the Find N, last week, albeit it hasn’t broken cover yet.