Oppo Air Glass: A Ground-Breaking AR Experiment?

On March 3, 2022, Oppo launched the Air Glass, the company’s first Augmented Reality (AR) to pair with their smartphones. However, Oppo has no plans to launch the Air Glass outside China. And they sell it in limited quantities there, where the company is already planning on replacing it with a newer version. The price of an Oppo Air Glass is relatively steep at 4,999 yuan (approximately $745). Currently, it’s still more a demo than a product.

Main Features

While many AR experiments focus on pushing purely technical capability, the Oppo Air Glass accepts some clear hardware limitations to play with an exciting form factor. Adi Robertson of The Verge tested a set of glasses and a matching smartphone. Robertson found a design idea so obvious and still needs more improvement.  

Augment Reality is a spectrum, and the Air Glass is considered a “simple notification machine” aspect. It differs from those realistic holograms in products such as Microsoft HoloLens. 

Below are some of the noticeable features of Oppo Air Glass: 

• The device is a single lens with a microLED display. The display can have a staggering peak brightness of up to 1400 nits!
• The powerful Spark Micro Projector shows all the dual Sapphire crystal glass information.
• Oppo Air Glass is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 SoC.
• This innovative device is equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS with in-built speakers and microphone.
• This device can turn into a mini teleprompter. Since the teleprompter displays any text you want, you can use it more creatively.   
• Currently, automatic translation is still limited to English and Chinese.

When you pair the smart device over Bluetooth with a China-only Oppo smartphone, you’ll see a green heads-up display that covers a tiny but significant portion of your vision. But Robertson said she was amazed by the assumption behind Oppo’s design. It is because it’s a solid idea to offer lots of style options while mitigating the usual AR creepiness. 

Nine years ago, Google Glass conducted a similar experiment. They invented the expensive camera and projection system and let them wear them at all times. But it looked awkward.

Other Specs and Features

Oppo’s AR interface relies on widget-like applications in the form of “cards,” which the wearer can manage from the paired smartphone application. It can be controlled using a touchpad on its side. Hand gestures are also supported, as is the peculiar feature of using the motion of the head to control it. Moreover, voice control is also incorporated.

Meanwhile, the Air Glass looks like an earbud for your eyes. Oppo Air Glass weighs only 30 grams, making it incredibly lightweight to wear. Users can wear it over their frames, but only two specific sizes exist.

It’s a product that takes people’s concerns about privacy and distraction seriously instead of trying to hide what they’re worried about inside a smaller package. It also helps that this version of Air Glass doesn’t have to include a camera. But Oppo says it doesn’t rule the option out for future versions.

“Unfortunately, after my first few hours with the glasses, I became slightly motion-sick and developed a headache within minutes of putting them on. The discomfort seemed to improve over time, but my eyes still feel strained after wearing them”, says Robertson.