Xiaomi Announces Concept MicroLED Smart Glasses
The glasses’ visuals are powered by a 0.13-inch monochrome MicroLED display, which is brighter and more stable than its less costly OLED alternative. “Smaller than a grain of rice,” the display is capable of a 2 million nit output that diffuses across the lens to generate a larger and more practical visual.
At 51 grams, the smart glasses are meant to be independent of the wearer’s smartphone, so they don’t require an ongoing connection with a mobile device. The glasses are Wi-Fi and Bluetooth compatible, feature a five-megapixel camera, and are powered by a quad-core ARM processor.
Though the general concept of AR-integrated smart glasses is cool—who doesn’t want to feel like James-Bond-slash-Tony-Stark while they’re doing their grocery shopping?—the applications associated with Xiaomi’s glasses seem a bit limited. In its announcement, the company only named four capabilities the glasses could possess: calling, text message viewing, navigation, and photo-capturing. (The announcement video also depicts someone using the glasses to translate a restaurant menu, but translation is not actually named as a feature.) For a device Xiaomi claims could potentially replace smartphones, the glasses offer more of a stripped-down experience than a comprehensive one.
Still, Xiaomi’s smart glasses do more than their would-be competitors, Facebook’s and Amazon’s , as neither offer AR capabilities and focus solely on the audio experience. These devices follow in the footsteps of the , as well as Snapchat’s , which originally could only capture and share 10-second video clips but now offer 3D photo-capturing and AR. Now we just have to see if Xiaomi’s smart glasses ever become a real product.
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