All The XR Glasses Announced At CES
A roundup of the key details from the mixed reality glasses announced at CES 2021.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is an influential global platform for the biggest names in consumer tech to show off their most experimental, groundbreaking, and sometimes outlandish products. From robots to TV’s, the event is the most anticipated of the year for technology enthusiasts.
This year’s all-digital CES was smaller than previous years but it was still jam-packed with exciting announcements in the AR, VR, and MR spaces. In particular, augmented reality, or ‘smart’ glasses were a big topic of conversation for the 2021 show.
We’ve rounded up the key announcements and sneak previews here.
Lenovo’s new AR smart glasses
The most recent offering from Lenovo, the ThinkReality A3 lightweight smart glasses are described as the “most versatile smart glasses ever designed for enterprise”. As the world gets used to remote working, distributed workforces, and hybrid work models, businesses are looking to adopt new technologies for smart collaboration. From customized virtual monitors and 3D visualization to augmented reality assisted workflows and immersive training, the ThinkReality A3 helps transform work across many levels of enterprise.
The portable, lightweight, and comfortable smart glasses connect to a PC or selected Motorola smartphones and are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform for high-quality performance. The glasses also feature stereoscopic 1080p displays, presenting the user with up to five virtual displays.
The device hasn’t been given a price yet, but Lenovo says it will be available in select markets worldwide, starting mid-2021.
Panasonic’s sleek VR glasses
Last year, Panasonic unveiled a prototype of a pair of VR glasses at CES. This year the company showed off a new and improved version of the device which includes 6DOF tracking — a feature the prototype was missing that led journalists to note that without this, the glasses were more of a VR “viewer” than a headset.
The other concern from the initial prototype was its front-heavy design, which has been addressed in the updated version. Better weight distribution has been achieved by strengthening the arms of the glasses and improving the shape of the ‘fins’ on the back to better grip the user’s head. The dangling earbuds of the prototype have been replaced by Panasonic Technics integrated audio, which looks to be similar to the way Oculus integrated audio into the Quest and Go headsets.
The glasses connect to 5G Android smartphones or PCs via a USB cable, have no onboard computing or power, and boast dual 2,560 × 2,560 micro OLEDs with a pixel density 2,245ppi.
There’s no price or release date for these VR glasses yet, but they do provide an amazing sneak preview of how compact virtual reality headsets could become in the future. We can’t wait to see the final product.
Vuzix MicroLED Smart Glasses
You’d be forgiven for mistaking these new smart glasses from Vusix for a normal pair of glasses that you’d see in the window of Specsavers. In reality, they boast MicroLED technology which allows them to look less like sci-fi tech and more like something you’d wear day-to-day.
They don’t have an official name yet but are being called Nex Gen Smart Glasses and feature include spatial audio, waveguides to display stereo screens on etched lenses, and micro-LED projectors. At 1 micron in size (A human hair is around 70 microns in diameter), these micro-LED’s have one of the highest density pixel arrays available, whilst being extremely power efficient, so your battery will last for longer.
Again, there’s no price detail for these glasses at the moment, though TechCrunch reports that the company is aiming for a summer release date.
Apple AR Glasses Concept
Technically, this isn’t a CES announcement, but as Apple smart glasses are a hot topic right now, we couldn’t leave out this concept video from Dominik Hofacker detailing how the glasses might work. Hofacker’s passion project took 10 weeks to complete, and as part of it, he put together a video of a user putting on a pair of the concept Apple AR smart glasses and showcasing potential features.
The fictional operating system is called macOS Reality and is as slick as you’d expect from the tech giant. The 50-second video starts with the glasses scanning the environment, then taking the user through a tutorial of the gestures used to control the virtual interface, similar to Microsoft HoloLens. You can see the full case study on Hofacker’s website here.
The video is a fantastic representation of what Apple’s smart glasses may eventually be capable of and how AR glasses and spatial operating systems will disrupt and redefine how we interact with a computer.
