On the first day of this year’s MWC, Oppo surprised us by announcing the fastest charging ever seen on a mobile. Although it will take time to see it on any device, there is another novelty that will surely arrive in Europe even later (if it ever ends up arriving).
This is the Oppo Air Glass, which we were also able to test on the stand that the company has in Mobile (where we also saw the new Oppo Find X5 and the new earphones Oppo Enco X2). For now, yes, they can only be purchased in China.
The big question is whether augmented reality glasses like these deserve such a wait and whether we should ask them to hurry to put them on sale also in Europe and other markets. Like any new technology, they have their pros and cons.
Although from the stand they present them to us as augmented reality glasses, they are rather assisted (or extended) reality, but this gives them the practicality and daily usability that virtual reality or reality headsets surely lack increased. .
Presented for the first time at INNO Day 2021, they are made of ordinary glasses that can even be graduated and to which is attached another lens that acts as a projector. This is where the adventure begins.
“As its futuristic design suggests, Oppo Air Glass will revolutionize the way we view and consume information. The user-friendly display can present key messages right before our eyes. With Oppo Air Glass, the world will never be the same thing,” company vice president Levin Liu said in his presentation.
Whether they will revolutionize the way we consume information remains to be seen, but no one can deny that their design could well be part of a sci-fi movie from a few years ago where they attempted to predict at what the world would look like in 2022.
The mount-clipping lens comes with a Spark microprojector, microLED, Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100, and a custom optical diffraction waveguide display. You can interact with the device by touch, voice, or head movement, although I was only able to test the former.
Specifically, I used it to change the spotlight page (one tap to go forward, two to go back). This is one of the most obviously practical functions of the glasses: being able to read a speech during a presentation without reading the paper.
The words (in green on a black background) will appear in front of you and you will only have to read them. In my experience, they don’t always seem sharp enough and you’ll definitely need to prescribe the glasses that come with the device to be able to read well.
Another function with a lot of potential is to use the glasses as a map. Let me explain. The instructions you need to follow to reach your destination will appear on the screen. It doesn’t work with Google Maps yet, but it’s not ruled out in the future.
Beyond that, you can use the Oppo Air Glass to check the time, know the weather, or simultaneously translate what another person is telling you. For this, the ideal would be to have two pairs of glasses, one for each interlocutor.
Both devices will need to be paired for the voice from one speaker to be automatically translated and appear as text on the screen of the other. For now, it only works between Chinese and English, although Japanese and Korean will be added soon.
Would I ever wear glasses like that on the street? Probably not. Are they the ideal solution that we have dreamed of for decades? Neither, but does that mean you have to throw them out altogether? Absoutely.
They are not perfect. They have obvious flaws and can still be improved. For example, your eyes will inevitably shift to the right to see what is written on the screen and it will look unnatural.
In addition, the design of the lens that acts as a projector is not very discreet, so other solutions like the Ray Ban Stories seem more accomplished (although imperfect).
