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OPPO said it would present its AR glasses – the OPPO AR Glass 2nd Gen and the OPPO Air Glass – at the 2022 Augmented World Expo, scheduled to take place in Santa Clara, CA, between June 1 – 3. This would be the first time that OPPO’s AR glasses will be showcased in the U.S.
The OPPO AR Glass 2nd Gen and the Air Glass differ in terms of functionality
The Air Glass was announced late last year and made its commercial debut in China a few months ago. It has an unconventional monocle-type design, projecting data at a brightness of up to 1400 nits. This is achieved using a Spark Micro Projector, which splashes content over the microLED lens. On the other hand, the OPPO AR Glass 2nd Gen is somewhat different. It brings features like 3D mapping, AR language recognition, translation, etc.
Both AR glasses require an OPPO smartphone to function, which could be a potential bottleneck if the company plans on releasing the hardware in the US. Moreover, accessing features like tracked air gestures requires the OPPO Watch 2.
Android Central speculates that OPPO could be more interested in attracting US-based AR developers to build content for its platform. OPPO’s hardware leverages the Snapdragon Spaces XR platform, which runs on Snapdragon’s silicon. This theoretically means it could run on non-OPPO hardware too.
While there are a bunch of companies currently betting on AR, OPPO is among the few to make AR hardware commercially available. Google is going big with AR, too, and the company is reportedly launching new hardware sometime this year or the next.
During the Q3 2021 earnings call, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai provided some information on the company’s future plans. While the likes of Meta (formerly Facebook) have a more complex notion of what AR/VR means for the world, Google’s plan has been less clear. But we’re now getting a better idea based on the “What’s new in AR” talk at I/O 2022.
So where does OPPO feature in this?
OPPO isn’t new to AR and has showcased technologies and prototypes for a few years. While it’s unclear if the manufacturer can scale its operations as Meta or Google can, the company is certainly one of the frontrunners. With its dedicated AR hardware already available, OPPO clearly has a head start.