Oppo has firmed up its AR ambitions by unveiling its AR Glass 2021 smartglasses concept.
Talked up at its second future gazing Inno Day, this is Oppo’s second augmented reality glasses concept that makes big promises about what it believes it can deliver with smart specs.
Essential reading: The best AR glasses and smartglasses
The new glasses introduce a split design look that Oppo says is 75% lighter than its first concept and has upped CPU and GPU performance by 40%, thanks to the ability to hook it up to Oppo’s smartphones to give that performance boost.
It’s also introducing nose supports to make it a better, more comfortable fit for more faces.
Altering the design meant Oppo could tweak the internals bringing in its new birdbath optics technology along 0.71-inch OLED display that delivers the augmented reality experience. It’s promising vastly improved image contrast, brightness and a wide field of view.
When used for video streaming, it will deliver a screen size equivalent to a 90-inch TV from 3m away. That screen size is accompanied by an onboard amplitude speaker to offer that more immersive viewing experience from the specs.
The glasses are also packed with binocular fisheye cameras that can track hands in milliseconds with predefined gestures. Even slight movements by your fingers can be used to control the glasses in addition to controlling it when paired to a smartphone.
Combined with an additional ToF (Time of Flight) camera, those fisheye cams can also be used to quickly assess your surroundings while in the AR realms.
On the software front and what you’ll actually be able to with the glasses, Oppo says it’s already worked with partners to make games and education experiences available. It’s also making the call for partners to help grow its AR platform.
While Oppo has gone heavy on details of what these glasses can do, it’s gone light on when we can see them. While there’s 2021 in the name and it plans to launch them next year, there was no mention when we would see them in the coming year. It has talked up its developer program that will launch in 2021.
We should remember that Oppo did show off an AR glasses concept last year, which never materialised. That concept also looked more like a Microsoft HoloLens-style setup, with the latest concept moving to something you might be a bit more comfortable with wearing. It’s still looks like glasses for wearing at home as opposed to out and about.
Though, with Facebook having already announcing that it is launching AR glasses next year, 2021 could really be the year we finally get to see the first big wave of augmented reality specs. Hopefully Oppo is going to be part of that wave.
