Xiaomi presented its brand new AR glasses in front of a few members of the press. We were able to see a quick grip without actually using them ourselves. Our first impressions are good.
Xiaomi surprised everyone by presenting a slightly different product than usual at MWC 2023: the Xiaomi Wireless AR Smart Glass Discovery Edition (which we will call Xiaomi Glass during this article if you don’t mind). Frandroid was lucky enough to be able to attend a presentation of the glasses and see them wearing them. What to have a little more precise idea of the concept.
Because on paper, the device embeds a host of technologies. We are told about Micro Oled, Xiaomi AR Gesture Control, an angular resolution or PPD (pixels per degree) approaching 60… in short, we were a little lost and afraid of the somewhat catch-all and disembodied product. We have indeed seen them and we can confirm that they exist, even if they will probably never come out in this form or for several generations.
Use cases
Let’s start with the arrangement of these glasses. By seeing them more closely, we understood better where each element was. Instead of a glass which would house a screen, there are two layers here: a first with a Micro Oled screen, therefore, relatively thick, then a second which imitates traditional glasses. Thanks to the use of “electrochromic” lenses, the glass of this second layer, the one that your interlocutors actually see from the outside, can take on a more smoky tone. You have the choice between a so-called transparent look and a so-called “immersive” look that allows you to cut yourself off from the world.
Source: Xiaomi
Source: Xiaomi
Source: Xiaomi
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The glasses aim to be as light as possible, as Abi Go, head of product marketing for Xiaomi in charge of the presentation, reminds us, who lists three components for its manufacture: carbon fiber, a magnesium-lithium alloy and a battery in silicon and oxygen anode. All this to stuff its glasses with technology while allowing them to reach a weight of 126 g.
You will no doubt tell us: all these technologies are all well and good, but what are the uses of such an object? Xiaomi’s presentation went to great lengths to show us some of them. One of the two wearers of glasses that we saw, for example, was scrolling through web pages with simple gestures. What struck us was that these gestures were anything but ample, they were small, very dry and precise finger movements. We hope that this bodes well for a real navigation with small onions.
Source: Xiaomi
Source: Xiaomi
The other interesting use that was presented to us is that of video games. On the large table that crossed the presentation appeared, at least in the eyes of the wearer of glasses, a tank beset by small enemies. By using his smartphone as a controller, he was able to play in front of us in augmented reality. A very nice promise, but let’s remember that the first virtual reality headsets did about the same in their time. Let’s hope that the technological advance offered by Xiaomi and its competitors finally makes it possible to transform this old fantasy of augmented reality gaming into… reality precisely.
Our journalist Titouan Gourlin is in Barcelona to cover MWC 2023 in its entirety, but he is present there as part of a press trip organized by Xiaomi.
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