After many years of pressure from the tech industry, smart glasses (and various other forms of tech headsets) are starting to gain momentum. This is a trend that, until now, had left me quite skeptical – for one essential reason: design.
This is either because they are obviously “smart”, meaning you are a likely candidate for a robbery in a dark alley, or because they make you look like a real wally. In the case of the Apple Vision Pro, it’s both (sorry, not sorry). However, I found a product at MWC 2024 that ultimately bucked the trend.
Tech Advisor was one of two UK publications to host a behind-the-scenes test session with the Oppo Air Glass 3, a pair of AR (augmented reality) glasses officially announced yesterday. They are made from a magnesium-lithium alloy and come in classic black.
As you can see, they look like a normal pair of glasses and are just as light and comfortable, weighing just 50g.
Chris Martin / Foundry
They are controlled by movements on the arm via touch sensors, although it took me a few attempts to navigate smoothly. With the glasses, I could see an e-book projected in front of my eyes and scroll through a calendar, the weather and more. These projections were bold and colorful, as the glasses have a peak brightness of over 1,000 nits.
You can also communicate with Oppo’s voice assistant through the glasses, with four built-in speakers to listen to commands. The technology uses the AndesGPT model and therefore can process images, text, video, audio, etc.
The downside is that the Oppo Air Glass 3 is a China-exclusive prototype and therefore won’t be available in the UK or US. There is still much to discover with this type of technology. For example, I use prescription glasses for work, but I didn’t wear them at this party. The text was therefore blurry for me.
There is of course the possibility of wearing them over your normal glasses. My fellow Tech Advisor team member tried this and had no problems…but it certainly takes away any credibility you might have.
Surely the way to go is to incorporate your prescription lenses into the glasses, but I imagine that will be expensive, and not everyone has the money or desire to have laser eye surgery.
If Oppo can resolve these issues, it could be a game-changer. They could be used for live translations for both foreign languages and people who are hard of hearing, as well as for directions when you’re on the move, while remaining fairly unobtrusive.
This is a huge step forward from the first pair of AR glasses Oppo launched in 2019, which made you look like Frozone from The Incredibles.
