Apple showed us what a mixed reality headset could be capable of with the debut of the Vision Pro at WWDC in 2023. It had all the bells and whistles required of an AR and VR headset from Apple, but didn’t find many takers. Perhaps because of its steep price tag or maybe, no one was ready for a headset positioning them into the spatial computing just yet.
For me, per se – it was the price, bulkiness, and small market size for a standalone device in the smart glasses category. Apple soon realized it after significant losses in projected sales. This is why rumors of Apple mulling the rollout of a more affordable non-Pro mixed reality headset model started doing the rounds.
Such a device would be made possible by trimming down the features and functionalities of the Vision Pro, but the Cupertino company has thought otherwise (at least for now). New reports by way of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is instead planning a pair of smart glasses that would be targeted at the masses – like the Meta’s Ray Bans – and fit better in the Apple ecosystem than the Vision Pro or its stripped-down brother.
The latest information suggests that the budget-friendly Vision model could have been postponed until after 2027, while the new internal study, codenamed project “Atlas” is running within Apple to understand from the company’s employees where they stand on the topic of smart glasses. Based on the internal understanding, Apple is thinking about smart glasses that would somewhat target the consumer segment that Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses intend to.
The Orion glasses for now are a prototype themselves. It wouldn’t be the best choice to compare or base the two non-existent devices on the same footing. But the basic idea is that Apple could have a pair of smart glasses that look like regular glasses and are a combination of slick design and useful features that would allow a connected iPhone to do most of the computing.
At the time of writing, it is not known whether Apple has started building such a product. Still, we learn that feasibility studies are happening within the company to deliver eyewear that addresses the issues of convenience, weight, and battery life. Irrespective of what direction Apple intends to take with the idea of smart glasses, it’ll almost take a few years to reach the market. If you’re in a hurry, get your hands on the Meta options!
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Virtual reality and augmented reality are going to set the tone this decade without a semblance of doubt. Moving around your avatar in larger-than-life worlds tickles your visual senses but you always realize it’s not the real thing since you are sitting or standing still while the character moves around in a virtual environment.
The Virtuix Omini was a good attempt at elevating your multi-dimensional experience in the metaverse but it didn’t fare well owing to its hardware and software limitations. After that things went back to square one, that is till now. The legendary Disney legend Lanny Smoot who’s got over 100 patented inventions has finally created something that’ll interest the most finicky of geeks.
This HoloDeck-inspired VR accessory is that’s an omnidirectional treadmill project that’s going to change how virtual reality is experienced. Dubbed the HoloTile, this creation has individual rotating tiles that actuate the real moment of the user corresponding to the movement in the VR world. The modular, expandable treadmill floor lets the user move in an infinite direction without walking off the surface. Lanny who’s currently a Disney Research Fellow has developed this system to create a deeper connection between the VR world and the body movement.
The treadmill can be expanded if multiple users want to use it, without bumping into each other. A good example of this would be several people in a room able to “be somewhere else collaboratively and moving around, seeing, doing sightseeing,” according to Smooth. Another application would be in theatrical stages, where multiple artists can collaborate in virtual worlds for a spectacular performance.
The HoloTile floor is still a work in progress and as we can see from the video it looks promising. Smoot walks in VR wearing the Quest Pro headset, as if walking on a real tarmac. The technology aims to address the locomotion problem without hitting obstacles or feeling clumsy enough to not walk naturally on the surface.
Talk of AR glasses and the first names that come to mind are Apple Visions Pro and Meta Quest 3. Priced exorbitantly, given their early stage of development, a lesser-priced alternative is bound to attract attention. That’s exactly what the $699 XREAL Air 2 Ultra is with a shipping date slated sometime in March 2024 for early adopters.
The wearable accessories are a cross between AR glasses and smart spectacles, making them highly practical for real-life situations. At the ongoing event, we got a chance to experience the Air 2 Ultra with its directional audio technology and were impressed by the experience. Also, we resonated well with the vision of bringing augmented reality (AR) to everyone. No doubt they won our “Best of CES 2024” award at the mega event!
These new fashion-forward glasses are lighter at 72 grams compared to the 80 grams of the earlier version. The display like the Air 2 is 1080p at a refresh rate of 120Hz and 500 nits brightness. A worthy upgrade comes in the form of 52 degrees FOV and the 42 pixels per degree which is even better than the Apple Vision Pro. It has also been improved to get an additional pair of cameras on each side for six degrees of freedom and positional tracking. This enables interaction with both hands for a surreal experience and applications like 3D mesh creation and future-proof AI capabilities.
Talking of the mixed reality experiences that developers can create, the company has laid much focus on the spatial computing aspect. To that accord, the Air 2 Ultra comes with a suite of tools for developers like the Nebula, an in-house developed AR environment launcher and the latest SDK. Given their smaller size, comfortable form factor and new in-frame sensors; the developers will be more than eager to put that hardware to use for unique mixed-reality applications.
XREAL has also proactively partnered with Qualcomm Technologies, BMW Group, NIO, Quintar, and Forma Vision to create niche spatial computing interfaces. These come in the form of navigation instructions, hazard warnings, holographic meetings, or entertainment content.
Augmented reality is the future of how we interact with our gadgets, and the surprise launch of Apple Vision Pro is a testament to this fact. While VR headsets come with a grave disadvantage of being bulky and ridden with wired connections, smart glasses seem to nullify this ergonomic disadvantage with their sleek design and aesthetics.
The BMW ConnectedRide glasses for safe motoring; or the mainstream AR glasses like Razer Anzu, Rokid Air and Ray-Ban Stories are good references of where we are headed to. Now Air2 AR wireless glasses by Shenzen-based company INMO wants to change the dynamics of what smart glasses should be, and how users interact with them. All this at an affordable price tag that should interest you!
The frames of these smart glasses are a bit thick for a retro appeal and the overall build quality is nice. Weighting less than 100 grams courtesy of the plastic and aluminum material, these smart glasses do look well built. This is a very important attribute since we are talking about a long duration of use without compromising comfort in practical circumstances.
Under those seemingly normal pair of glasses is a micro-OLED display (640×400 pixels) that feels like a floating projector screen to the user. This makes them good for watching video content but they aren’t preferred for text content like reading blog articles. That said, the content can be navigated with touch gestures on the arms and for other controls there are two buttons below them. There are two speakers that beam audio downwards for crisp audio delivery but can be a tad loud to disturb others in your vicinity. INMO has also fitted a low-resolution camera that isn’t great, so we’ll take a skip.
Movies
Screen Mirroring: Watch Anything
ChatGPT Intelligent Assistant
Talking of the specifications the Air2 wireless glasses have a four-core 1.8GHz ZiGuang ZhanRui AI chip, mated to 2GB of RAM and 32GB of ROM. The glasses also get cellular connectivity, GPS and Bluetooth 5.0 for more options. On a single full charge of around two hours (pretty long duration), the smart glasses last about 70-120 minutes and if you keep the media consumption down to normal you can extract some more time from the 500mAh battery.
For people whose lives and livelihoods depend on computers, having more than one or even two monitors is both a necessity and a luxury. You can only have so many screens on your desk, and you won’t be able to carry them around to bring your preferred workflow anywhere else. That’s why there has been a sudden increase of “multi-monitor laptops” on crowdfunding platforms, most of which are just short-term fixes to a lingering problem. Unfortunately, the ideal solution of having virtual screens floating before our very eyes is still a distant dream, but engineers and designers have been working on stop-gap options in the meantime. A new contender has just loudly announced its arrival, and while it looks a bit less ambitious than other AR solutions we’ve seen so far, it could also become the most usable and approachable of them all.
In a nutshell, Spacetop is a laptop without a screen, whose lone monitor is replaced by AR glasses similar to those marketed by companies such as Nreal. Similar to those AR platforms, it promises a nearly infinite screen space where you can have as many windows open as your eyes can see. A key difference, however, is that you still have the usual keyboard and touchpad that sits on top of the computing guts, exactly like a laptop, making it sound more realistic compared to “air typing” in VR or AR. But while Spacetop sounds like a dream come true, it might also become a disaster for the well-being of already taxed and strained computer users. To see the forest for the trees, here are five ways Spacetop can be a boon to computer users and five ways it can be a bane instead.
5 Reasons Space is Great for Business
Infinite Monitor
Let’s face it, most of us would probably like to have as much screen space as possible if it were only physically possible. Although you will most likely just focus on one to three windows at a time, having easy access to other information without having to click around is still a great time saver. Monitoring the home security camera off to the side, keeping an eye on social media trends, and just having entertaining or inspiring content within your view are a lot better than seeing the clutter on your desk all the time.
Since that’s not possible in the physical realm, Spacetop’s solution resides purely in the virtual one. It’s not exactly the first to make that proposition, but it could turn out to be the most accessible one. AR glasses that don’t weigh your head down, a normal physical keyboard and touchpad, and a potentially more approachable price tag could finally make that infinite screen space dream come true.
Total Privacy
One reason why you wouldn’t want to have too many physical monitors is that you can’t really block off other people from nosing around your business. That’s also why those multi-monitor laptop accessories aren’t ideal in public places because it only increases the risk of people seeing what should be private and secret information. There are laptops and monitors that now implement a sort of privacy screen, but that only works on a single monitor.
Spacetop solves this by removing monitors altogether. In your own virtual bubble, you’re the only one that can see the contents of your screen unless you start sharing it with others virtually. But while this does address the problem of unauthorized eyes peeking at your non-existent monitors, it also means those next to you who need to see them won’t be able to unless you hand over your glasses.
Better Posture
While laptops are great at being portable, they’re terrible at being comfortable. The fact that the screen is permanently attached to the keyboard means you’ll always be craning down your neck, even if you have a gigantic laptop screen. That’s why even laptop owners would attach a desktop monitor at the office or at home to relieve some of the pain coming from that improper posture. Spacetop doesn’t have a screen, of course, so you’re free to raise your head to a more natural and comfortable height. There’s no need for ergonomic monitor stands or arms because there’s no monitor to speak of in the first place.
Laser Focus
Given Spacetop’s design, it supports a very specific use case, one that revolves around productively using computer programs for work and a bit of personal time. It puts everything you need in front of you and around you, effectively blocking out visual distractions coming from the outside world. Whether you let virtual distractions get to you is something you get to decide on your own rather than having other people decide for you.
At the same time, Spacetop is a bit restricted in the applications you’ll be able to use. Its Android-based operating system and mobile hardware dictate what apps you’ll have access to, which won’t include every software under the sun, especially those that require Windows or macOS (unless you have access to a remote desktop of some sort). It also means little to no gaming, which might sound ironic for an AR platform. There will probably be some ways to get past these limitations, but it won’t be as convenient an experience as on a normal computer.
Complete Freedom
With basically just the lower half of a laptop, Spacetop removes almost all physical restrictions of computing. The world effectively becomes your office, and you can set up your workstation anywhere you want or need to. You might not even need a table if you can comfortably balance Spacetop on your lap, just like what a laptop should be able to do.
This practically means you don’t have to worry about not being productive just because you’re away from home or the office or that you won’t be able to respond to emergencies without your trusty desktop monitor. In a nutshell, Spacetop frees you to be able to do your work or hobbies anywhere, but is that really a good thing?
5 Reasons Spacetop is a Bad Idea
Diminished Awareness
Augmented reality technologies have progressed significantly over the past years, but they still retain one significant flaw. Most implementations still cover a large part of your vision, and Spacetop pretty much makes it worse by having dozens of windows blocking the full range of your vision. Yes, you can limit the number of windows to just a handful, but that wouldn’t be getting the best out of its capabilities.
This, in turn, could affect your spatial awareness, effectively making you blind to what’s happening around you. Yes, there will be parts of your vision that won’t be covered by windows or the glasses, but these will just be in your periphery. This will be especially dangerous in public places where you should be more attentive to your surroundings than when you’re at home or in the office.
Social Isolation
Being able to focus on work in the middle of a bustling cafe is a good thing, but doing that among family, friends, and peers might be in poor taste. Sure, we’ll find people who are always glued to their phones, even in a circle of friends, but Spacetop takes that a step further by actually advertising your detachment from present company.
Even if socially acceptable, such isolation can also have practical downsides in a workgroup setting. Spacetop is a very personal and private experience, which also means you can’t quickly show your work to others unless it’s being shown on an external display. Even then, you won’t be able to see their natural reactions to your presentation unless all of them are on a virtual call anyway. Then again, that lack of natural response has been a recurring problem with Zooms and Meets, and those happen even on a normal screen.
Ergonomic Concerns
The lack of a laptop monitor does give our neck a bit of relief, but Spacetop doesn’t exactly solve everything else. You won’t need to lean to look at the monitor, but this virtual space won’t stop you from slouching instead. Neck strain can also come from a different source this time, like when you have to constantly turn sideways to view the nearly infinite amount of screens at your disposal. You’ll also have to wear the AR glasses the whole time, which can become uncomfortable for long periods, even for those used to wearing eyeglasses. Lastly, having displays or lenses so physically close to the eyes might have even worse ramifications compared to regular monitors.
Spacetop makes the dream of an AR laptop a bit more approachable by reusing the familiar keyboard and touchpad combo. Unfortunately, this combo is also one of the big sources of repetitive strain injuries, and this screenless laptop doesn’t exactly address that. In fact, it could make things worse by encouraging a mindset that thinks working anytime, anywhere is actually a good thing.
Limited Utility
The Spacetop’s laser-focus advantage could also be one of its weaknesses. Most of the examples shown off so far revolve around what would be considered “regular” office work, like making presentations, analyzing charts, responding to emails, and the like. This definitely covers a large part of what people use laptops for, but it’s hardly the most important one, especially for those who need unlimited screen space and the freedom to work anywhere inspiration strikes.
Designers and creatives, in particular, would benefit from having a larger canvas to put their digital content and tools on, and Spacetop can definitely help with that. These users, however, also often need specialized peripherals to do their work, like pens, MIDI instruments, and the like. You can probably attach these to the Spacetop as you would with a normal laptop, but it will be difficult to use them because of the visual occlusion. Suffice it to say, Spacetop’s design and focus seem to be biased towards office and knowledge workers that toil for hours on documents and data, which they can now do anywhere with fewer excuses.
Unbalanced Lifestyle
Spacetop is an interesting application of AR technology that makes this dream of an infinite number of monitors more relatable and approachable, not to mention a little bit more affordable. It lets people carry the equivalent of a gigantic screen that no one else can see, enabling them to truly work anywhere. It’s kind of liberating but also a bit worrying because it pretty much empowers a workaholic mentality.
People’s computers are often overloaded with desktop icons, files, and browser tabs, reflecting their own mental overload and often unbalanced lifestyles. Instead of helping them gain control over these and learn how to properly manage these things, this screenless AR laptop pretty much just gives them more room to stack more tabs and windows and do more work. And this time, their bosses can probably expect or even demand work to be done anytime, anywhere since they’d have all the space they need. At the end of the day, healthy well-being is the most important factor in productivity, and that’s not something you can gain just by having more screen space.
Skiing gear and equipment have been through drastic evolution in the past decade or so. The skis are safer, the slopes are better prepared, and ski lifts are faster now. However, there is still scope for technologies like augmented reality and artificial intelligence to make inroads to revolutionize the skiing experience for good.
Stepping in with a heads-up display of sorts, Zurich-based Ostloong has designed and developed the Sirius smart goggles that incorporate AR and AI in one successful unit. This brings smartphone notifications, slope details, and other vital information right in front of the skier’s eyes without impacting their field of view.
As the first-ever advanced ski goggles that offer the adventurist an augmented reality experience with rich color display and detailed output, Sirius is the only eyewear combining AR and AI for outdoor sports.
These Googles give the user a fresh perspective on the slopes: ensuring safety and allowing one to communicate while moving on the snow mountain, skiing or snowboarding. With the full-color augmented reality display for the outdoors, the Sirius overruns any previous solutions in outdoor personal projection options and makes for a piece of viable equipment.
The Sirius goggles are a fine example of how AI is revolutionizing the world of augmented reality. The AR eyewear can predict and provide an immersive and multidimensional experience that is both responsive and personalized to the wearer.
The Sirius smart goggles are now available starting at approximately $650 (depending on the model). It comes in two models – Standard and Pro – with the latter shooting the price up to $1,100 odd. By combining AI and AR in smart goggles Ostloong has created for mountain lovers a new level of virtual experience that can enhance the way people interact with their environment.
In a sea of ski-goggle-shaped AR headsets, OPPO’s 2nd-gen Air Glass is slim enough to be mistaken for an actual pair of glasses. Look carefully, however, and you’ll notice the cleverly concealed reflective display in the eyepieces. To the wearer, however, the display impressively overlays virtual elements right on top of real life, helping you see the time, weather, notifications, etc.
Designer: OPPO
The Air Glass 2 was announced last year at OPPO’s INNO Day event, with a broader reveal at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It seems leaps and bounds ahead of the first Air Glass that debuted in 2021, with a mildly clunky, Google Glass-esque design. In its second iteration, the Air Glass 2 looks exactly like a regular pair of glasses, albeit with loads of impressive tech underneath its surface.
The Air Glass 2 is an ‘assisted reality’ wearable that now has two displays, one in each eyepiece. The way these displays work is using a MicroLED built into the frame, which projects images onto a resin SRG-diffractive optical waveguide lens, developed as a joint partnership between OPPO and meta-bounds. These new lenses are lighter, more drop-resistant, and safer, in line with consumers’ daily habits of using glasses, making them perfect for the Air Glass 2.
The eyepieces get their visuals from 0.13″ green microLED displays built into the sides of the eyewear, capable of outputting an impressive 1,000 nits per eye. You’ve also got an environmental light sensor, a touchpad for registering input, microphones, and speakers built into the Air Glass 2’s temple stems, completing the entire wearable experience. The glasses are powered by a Snapdragon 4100 processor, and the entire wearable runs on a built-in 200mAh battery that has a 3-hour lifespan and can be charged via a pogo-pin charger that connects to the end of the spectacles’ temple stems.
The entire hardware comes with a magnesium-lithium alloy outer construction and weighs a paltry 38 grams, making it about 8 grams heavier than its predecessor, but with double the tech. This lightweight design also means that the Air Glass 2 can’t be used as a standalone wearable. It needs to be wirelessly connected to a smartphone, which can then beam data to the eyepieces, allowing you to view navigation data, live translations, calendar alerts, weather updates, fitness tracking data, and other datasets. The microphone and speakers help wearers take calls, give voice commands, or even listen to music.
The OPPO Air Glass 2 app lets you control what you see in the eyepieces
Ultimately, the Air Glass 2 is perhaps the biggest flex from any company in the AR space (note: the Air Glass 2 is an ‘assisted reality’ wearable). The Air Glass 2 is surprisingly small and light, while looking just about as fashionable as any regular pair of acetate frames. The MicroLED display and diffractive optical waveguide lens system are light-years ahead of the competition, although the elements on the screen have their own limitations – they’re green, exist in only a small part of your FoV, and don’t do much as of now. That being said, the Air Glass 2 is still leaps and bounds ahead of other wearables, even though Google teased a similar pair of glasses last year in a concept video but didn’t show any actual hardware.
A close-up of the pogo-pin charger for the OPPO Air Glass 2
The OPPO Air Glass 2 was unveiled in both black and white frame variants, although pricing and release date details haven’t been made public. If this is anything like the 2021 Air Glass, OPPO will probably sell a limited number of units to enthusiasts in China before considering a global rollout.
Although it does have the word “mobile” in it, MWC has long ceased to just be about smartphones and tablets. These days, anything you can pick up and use on the go is labeled as mobile, sometimes including laptops. When it comes to portability, however, wearables have become quite the fad, and this category isn’t just limited to smartwatches or “hearables” like earbuds and hearing aids. One strong presence at MWC 2023 this year seems to be headsets and eyewear, particularly those designed for augmented and virtual reality applications. Not to be left behind, ZTE’s nubia is showcasing its first-ever AR eyewear, and it seems to be trying to be a bit more fashionable at the expense of a bit of freedom of movement.
As far as mixed reality headgear and eyewear are concerned, the trend seems to be going in the direction of cramming all the necessary hardware inside the device, unlike the first-gen Oculus Quest and HTC Vive headsets that needed to be connected to a powerful PC with a cable. A standalone headset does have tradeoffs, though, especially when you consider the weight of the hardware and the built-in battery. That’s why some devices still try to aim for a completely lightweight and comfortable design, even if it means offloading the brunt of the work to external devices.
The new ZTE nubia NeoVision Glass is one such type of device. It’s incredibly lightweight at 79g, but it’s not lacking when it comes to display quality. It boasts Micro-OLED screens with 3500 PPI and a binocular resolution of 1080p, giving the wearer the equivalent of a 120-inch screen floating before their eyes. It doesn’t skimp on the audio either, with two omnidirectional speakers and a cyclonic sound tank. All in all, it promises a full range of multimedia experiences for both your ears and your eyes.
The nubia NeoVision Glass also advertises high compatibility with a wide range of devices, including phones, computers, and consoles. It’s “plug and play,” which suggests that it doesn’t come with its own computer inside, though ZTE wasn’t exactly clear on that part. It does mean that you can use any device or platform you want, though it also means you’ll be rooted on the spot near that device unless it’s something you can carry around.
ZTE does, however, pay special attention to both the looks of the eyewear as well as its accessibility. Magnetic lenses make it trivial to swap out different sunglasses designs, and it supports zero to 500-degree myopic adjustment for those that need to wear prescription glasses. It’s still relatively bulky compared to typical sunglasses, but few will realize that you’re viewing the world through a different set of lenses, figuratively and literally.
