Mobile World Congress (MWC) is a platform for the biggest of brands to unveil their cutting-edge tech innovation that’ll set the way forward for the years to come. Taking the stage to reveal an AR headset, Xiaomi has sent ripples in the industry, dotted with bulky headsets for wireless AR consumption. The Chinese OEM launched a sleek, lightweight pair of AR glasses that you wouldn’t mind wearing in public.
Designed to herald an “ear of wireless AR,” this compact headset called Wireless AR Glass Discover Edition is designed to connect to user’s smartphone. Though it is a prototype for now, Yanko Design managed a hands-on with wireless eyewear at MWC, and we believe Xiaomi has done a great job with the design and feel: the glasses seem almost ready for the market, but we suggest you don’t start setting assigned your fortune for this one just yet.
Designer: Xiaomi
Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition weighs only 126g or 4.4 ounces on the nose, which is insignificant compared to the chunkier AR/VR headsets we have seen in our day. This lightweight yet sturdy design is made possible with the use of a magnesium-lithium alloy and carbon fiber construction.
You can trim the design, use lightweight materials in construction, but the most weight on such a wearable device is its battery. Xiaomi has carefully installed an in-house developed silicon-oxygen anode battery that reduces the physical load, translating into a minimum weight increase on the device.
The Xiaomi AR Glass Discovery Edition is powered by a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 processor under the hood, and packs a pair of micro OLED displays boasting retina-revel resolution and brightness of up to 1200nit. Xiaomi says its AR glasses feature 58 pixels per degree (PPD) which is more than twice the PPD on the Meta’s Quest Pro that runs on the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1.
Courtesy of the retina-level display, these AR glasses deliver a truly immersive visual experience. The glasses allow a user to blend the virtual and real worlds, seamlessly accessing either with a single click. For this, the front lenses are electrochromic that adjust to light conditions, depending on the user’s preference. They can blackout when the user wants to focus on the virtual world.
Xiaomi has released a video presentation of the AR Glass Discovery Edition showcasing several features that the glasses have to offer. This includes specially developed hand gestures in addition to smartphone-based touch controls. The hand-tracking feature allows user to open apps, drag and drop virtual objects in the physical world, swipe through pages with a finger, and do a lot more.
However, exciting Xiaomi’s AR glasses concept may seem; there’s no word on price or availability as of yet so we will only have to live by the video presentation and the images below.
