The Oppo Air Glasses are coming but no, don’t call them “smart glasses”

Define the Oppo Air Glass “Smart glasses” would be incorrect. In fact, the Chinese company has adopted a different approach than the competition: instead of developing a traditional pair of glasses, it has decided to focus on a device that, in the future, can be associated with different mounts.
So how are these Air Glass made? The device consists of three main elements: a micro-projector, a state-of-the-art micro LED and a diffraction optical waveguide display. Using them should be super easy as the Asian company has provided interactions through the touch, the voice, the movement of the head and that of the hand.

“Oppo has long explored the possibilities of Extended Reality (XR) and with the Air Glass we have finally created a smart product that is truly affordable for consumers – he commented. Levin Liu, Vice President and Head of Oppo Research Institute. – As their futuristic design suggests, the Oppo Air Glasses are destined to revolutionize the way we see and use data. The display, particularly intuitive to use, can display the key information we need right in front of our eyes. With Oppo Air Glass, the world will never be the same “.

Oppo Air Glass: how are they made?

30 grams of weight and minimal design for the Oppo Air Glass, a monocular waveguide device equipped with a touchbar and with a design inspired by the wings of cicadas. The lens is attached to a thin bezel that houses all components, including the processor Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100.

At the heart of the display system we find the Spark microprojector, developed in-house by Oppo, the size of a coffee bean and features a CNC metal casing with a glass lens module that provides better heat dissipation and greater stability. To feed it we find an avant-garde micro LED with a brightness that reaches 3 million nits.

The Oppo Air Glass adopt a custom-made optical diffraction waveguide which supports two display modes: 16-level or 256-level grayscale. This system can deliver up to 1400 nits of average brightness, so the information display remains clear and sharp in any light conditions.
On board then we find two layers of sapphire glass that enclose the wave guide on both sides, providing protection and better transparency.

What can I do about it?

However, the question we asked ourselves immediately is another: what can I do with this smart device?
First of all, Oppo Air Glass can be used thanks to the Oppo Watch 2 Smart Glass App and with any smartphone of the Chinese company that has the ColorOS 11 or later.
As we have anticipated, there are four modes of interaction: touch, voice, hand movements (associated with the use of Oppo Watch 2) and head movement.

The Air Glasses will allow users to install different applications, including weather, calendar, health and navigation. In addition, the functionality of translation, with the voice input that will be translated into text in the target language and then displayed on the Air Glass of your interlocutor. Currently the device supports bidirectional Chinese Mandarin – English translation while Mandarin Chinese – Japanese and Mandarin Chinese – Korean will be available soon.

Oppo also designed the app teleprompter, which allows an adaptive display of the text. This means that, during big events, instead of reading huge displays positioned meters away, the speakers will be able to use the Air Glass.

Finally, on the software front we find Baidu Walk & Bike Navigation ed Explore Nearby per Oppo Air Glass, so users can receive instructions for walking or cycling and even view information about nearby shops or other points of interest.

Oppo Air Glass: price and availability

The Oppo Air Glass will arrive on the Chinese mainland market in the first quarter of 2022. At the moment the company has not announced the price and no, for now we do not know if they will ever come to us.

What is known is that, to facilitate access to as many people as possible, they will be available two different types of frames: a silver “half-frame” and a black “full-frame” frame, so as to go against those who need corrective glasses. Both colors will be available in two sizes.