Chinese AR brand Nreal has unveiled its Nreal Air smartglasses, which seriously up the ante in terms of size, weight and style.
The Nreal Air weighs just 77g (a standard pair of Wayfarers weigh 45g) and feature duel micro OLED displays, capable of simulating a 201-inch display at 6 meters away – with a refresh rate of 90Hz.
The screen offers 49 pixels per degree (PPD) and a field of view of 46 degrees.
Unlike the Snap Spectacles AR and Ray-Ban Stories, Nreal says its specs are more about consuming content than creating it. There’s no forward-facing camera – and the company says it’s found that users of the Nreal spent their time watching videos.
“In Korea we’ve found that 78% of our users use Nreal Light to watch streaming content. Nreal Air builds on our Nreal Light offering and furthers our mission to spread AR globally. With Nreal Air, we’ve zeroed in on the perks of a portable movie theater and condensed this into lightweight AR sunglasses with a zero-footprint display, while making it affordable,” said Nreal’s founder Chi Xu.
That means we’re unlikely to see use cases and apps for wandering around town, receiving emails and getting directions. There also doesn’t seem to be a smart assistant built in, so voice control is out.
The previous generation Nreal Light
We tried out the Nreal Light specs at CES 2019, and we were impressed by the visual quality of the OLED display for watching video. These Ray-Ban Wayferer-esque specs look much more suited to wearing in public – perhaps on planes or trains as the world returns to normal.
There’s no set pricing yet, although the Nreal Air is set to be “a fraction of the price” of the Nreal Light. It will launch in Asia in December 2021, and will arrive in select other markets in 2022.
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James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.