The viewers for virtual or augmented reality commercially available, like Oculus or Hololens, they are quite bulky devices, which completely wrap the wearer’s head. The new Air Glass, presented by Oppo in Shenzhen on the occasion of the annual Inno Day event, instead goes in a completely different direction: it is small, unobtrusive and weighs only 30 grams.
And the use of the singular to describe it is not a mistake: although the name may suggest a proximity to the glasses, the Air Glass is actually a single viewer, a sort of monocle that is mounted thanks to a magnet on the lateral rod of a frame made ad hoc to optimize its positioning in front of the eye.
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Digital monocle
The actual device has the size of a rod, to which a translucent sapphire lens is connected on the front: here is the microled display, on which the micro-projector hidden in the body of the Air Glass projects data and information. The lens is positioned in such a way that stay at the edge of the field of view of the wearer of the device. The Air Glass interface is superimposed on the surrounding world, always visible, but also easy to ignore when not needed.
The frame
From Oppo they explained that the frame on which the Air Glass is grafted was made in such a way as to balance the monocle, weighing down the opposite rod. Also the nose pads (the bumps that rest on the nose) have been positioned in such a way as to best distribute the contained weight of the device. It cannot be ruled out that in the future other manufacturers may also create ad hoc frames following Oppo’s construction guidelines.
Once attached to the frame, the Oppo viewer is somewhat reminiscent of the Google Glass in an advanced and miniaturized version, but with one substantial difference: there is no camera on the Air Glass. In short, the privacy of those in front of us at the restaurant or bar is safe by default.
The interface
The interface of the Air Glass is minimal like the design of the device. Oppo has created a dedicated monochromatic Ui that closely resembles car head-up displays, which project some information onto the windshield. The data shown to the wearer of the device are manifold: biometric statistics can be viewed while exercising, or directions while driving or cycling. Among the examples shown by Oppo is the Hunchback mode (to read the text of a speech or presentation without taking your eyes off the listener) or the simultaneous translation, which displays the subtitles of the conversation with a foreign interlocutor in real time. The latter mode for now only works with Chinese and English. New features will come later thanks to third-party developers, who will be able to implement their software solutions thanks to a dedicated kit.
Qualcomm’s hand
The beating heart of the Air Glass is the chip Snapdragon Wear 4100, the same as found in the second generation of the Oppo Watch and other competing smartwatches.
The device can be controlled directly from the Oppo smartphone with Color OS 11, but also via voice or touch, with some predefined and customizable gestures. Despite the Qualcomm platform consumes very little, the battery life of the Air Glass isn’t mind blowing: a maximum of 3 hours of continuous use is reached. On the other hand in standby (therefore with the microprojector off, but ready to be activated) the declared autonomy reaches just over two days.
The other news of the Inno Day
Air Glass was not the only novelty presented during the Hymn Day, the Day of Innovation Oppo: a new proprietary chip for photography, the Marisilicon X, and the first foldable smartphone of the Chinese brand, the Find N.
The Marisilicon, made with Tsmc’s 6nm process, is in fact an Npu, that is a processor for artificial intelligence, which will serve to improve the photographic performance of Oppo smartphones. The first to mount it will be the next Find X4 Pro, whose debut is expected in the first quarter of 2022.
The chip made by Oppo is destined to join Qualcomm’s top of the range, in order to further improve the computational photography capabilities of the manufacturer’s high-end devices: it will be able to enable features such as 4K Ultra Hdr movie recording, even at night, or 20-bit Raw. Another fundamental function is the real-time rendering of the effects and computational optimization of the photo, to avoid the post-shooting development effect typical of current top-of-the-range smartphones.
Oppo Find N
In recent days, Oppo had already unveiled the arrival of the first folding smartphone, the Find N: the official debut date in China is December 15th, but between official previews and leaks (an integral part of the communication strategy of the Chinese giant), we already know practically everything about the product. According to an official video, released online earlier than expected, the device has a compact size. The approach to folding is that of the Samsung Galaxy Fold: when closed the device looks like a smartphone a little thicker than normal; when opened it becomes a mini-tablet with a vaguely square form factor.
From the leaked video preview and from images posted on Twitter It is also possible to guess that Oppo would have managed in part to eliminate the central crease on the main screen, one of the hitherto unsolved problems of this type of folding smartphone.
On Twitter, smartphone expert Abhishek Yadav also posted a list of technical specifications that appears totally plausible. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, accompanied by 8 Gb of Ram and 256 of memory. The external screen has a refresh rate of 60Hz, while the internal one reaches 120Hz. The main camera is 50 Mp and the price should be about 12,999 yuan, or around 1800 euros.
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Will Air Glass and Find N arrive in Europe?
It is not yet completely clear, at the moment, if and when Find N and Air Glass will leave the Chinese market and will also arrive here: for now there are no official announcements, but it is possible hypothesize that at least the Find N could debut in Europe over the next year. On the other hand, it is more difficult to guess the fate of Air Glass, which for some functions should be closely linked to Color OS 11, Oppo’s operating system. It is therefore a product that strongly depends on the coupling with a smartphone of the manufacturer, and the market share of Oppo in Italy and in Europe, as far as grown exponentially over the past two years, may not yet be sufficient to justify the work of adapting the interface and functions for markets other than the Chinese one.
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