Xiaomi surprised us with a special demonstration at Mobile World Congress of Barcelona: in fact he showed us i Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition. This new technological concept allows you to enjoy low-latency augmented reality – and above all without wires.
Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition presentati al MWC 2023
In one of the meeting rooms at the Xiaomi booth in Barcelona, the company showed us these really interesting new augmented reality glasses. They are in fact very light: they weigh only 126 grams. In this way it is convenient to keep them in front of your eyes even for long periods, above all because having no wires you are not in any way limited in your movements.
Platform based Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1, have a proprietary communication system developed by Xiaomi with low latency. Let’s talk about just 31 milliseconds between smartphone and glasses: a solution comparable to wired ones.
Also, they take advantage of the developer platform Snapdragon Spaces XR, which allows you to create various innovative software solutions.
Lightweight and well calibrated design
When the Xiaomi team showed us the glasses, we were struck by the rather thick, yet very light design. This is because not only the structure of the glasses is made of magnesium-lithium, with parts made of carbon fiber. But also because the anode silicon-oxygen battery that Xiaomi developed on its own (and placed in one of the rods of the glasses, while in the other we find the motherboard and the processor) it is quite light.
Also, the Xiaomi team in Barcelona has us pointed out the calibration, arrived after analysis of thousands of samples. The center of gravity, the angle, the support on the glasses. A well-studied device also in terms of design.
Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition e il display Retina-Level
Even the display of this concept gives us hope for a future commercial launch. In fact, Xiaomi’s engineers have worked to launch glasses with display “Retina-Level”with a high quality level.
The Xiaomi team explains to us that when the angular resolution (PPD or pixels per degree) approaches the value of 60, the human eye cannot distinguish the granularity of the images. For this reason, the value of Xiaomi’s new smart glasses is close to this value, in fact, it reaches 58.
The pair of MicroOLED screens have free-form prisms that guide the light and reflect the light on three surfaces for present the best result in the eyes of the users. The optical module design reduces light loss to a minimum and offers a brightness of 1200 nits: they can therefore be used in any light condition.
Finally, as you can see in the image above, Xiaomi showed us the electrochromic lenses of the product, which adapt to different light conditions. Then they dim when you need to view content in VR and immerse yourself in the images. Instead, the transparent mode is great for AR experiences.
Le Xiaomi AR Gesture Control
Perhaps the most interesting point of the presentation that Xiaomi gave us at the stand in Barcelona concerns the gestures for using the product. A new way to interact with computers, in a simple way.
Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition in fact uses the joints of the fingers as reference points to recognize gestures. The knuckles of the fingers in particular are the input for writing nine keys in Chinese, for example. But during the presentation we also saw a Xiaomi expert playing a video game using his fingers that he saw on the screen of the glasses – a scene that really seems to come from the future.
All gestures are captured by AON camera low consumption, which allows you to interact without consuming too much battery. But you can also combine a keyboard or smartphone input – a flexible solution.
Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition – a taste of the future
As far as we could see during the demonstration at the Xiaomi stand, there are several applications that can be enjoyed on the virtual screen of the new Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition. Thank you Mi Share streaming, one can take advantage of popular apps like TikTok and YouTube, enjoying them on one portable screen.
And then there are all the features related to Xiaomi’s vast ecosystem of smart home devices. For example you can virtually “grab” the Xiaomi TV screen to continue watching it on the augmented reality glasses. Or you can turn a WiFi-connected lamp on and off using finger gestures even from a distance.
Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition requires to be connected to Xiaomi 13 or other enabled device Snapdragon Spacesbut are also compatible with OpenXR and the development framework Microsoft MRTK. In the future, when a similar device (maybe) arrives on the market, there could therefore be a lot of extra applications and devices with which to exploit it.
For the moment we just have to wait for this high-tech solution to hit the market – we’ll keep you updated.