Xiaomi today announced its entry into the smart glasses (not AR glasses) world in a blog post describing them as an “engineering mindset to create a future viewpoint.”
The Xiaomi Smart Glasses have a 0.13-inch MircoLED display on one of the lenses, According to the company, it uses “optical waveguide technology” — which refracts light at 180 degrees — to display content, such as notifications and navigation assistance, on the screen. The glasses have an in-built 2.4mm x 2.02mm display chip in the frame, pretty small.
The Chinese tech giant adds that the display uses a monochrome mode in sunlight with 2 million nits of brightness for better visibility. The optical waveguide tech allows it to reduce the size and weight (51 grams) of the frame, and make it look like a regular pair.
The Xiaomi smart glasses can pair with your smartphone to show you details like incoming calls and notifications. However, Xiaomi says it can also independently show you information related to navigation and real-time text translation.
The Xiaomi smart glasses sport a single 5-megapixel camera to take photos, videos and help you with translating text on signboards. In contrast, Facebook and Ray-Ban’s glasses have dual 5-megapixel cameras.
The company said you’ll have to use its XiaoAi AI Assistant as a primary method of interaction. You’ll also find touch controls on the frame, but Xiaomi hasn’t specified exactly what these are for yet.
Sound similar? This is because, unlike the new Facebook smart glasses which are already controversial, Xiaomi is trying to emulate the vision of Google Glass.
Without a product to go with the release though, it just feels like Xiaomi wants to be the first. You can read more about the Xiaomi Smart Glasses here.
