Xiaomi presents the Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition at MWC 2023

Xiaomi’s MWC 2023 is not only characterized by the European launch of the Xiaomi 13 series, but also by the debut of a very interesting concept, namely the new Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition.

As it is easy to guess from the name, it is a pair of AR glasses that Xiaomi has enriched with a series of features and technologies that make them particularly cutting-edge. The general overview of the product shows us the presence of very defined screens and with adaptable brightness based on the ambient one, Snapdragon Space connectivity, hand tracking and very deep integration with smartphones and other devices. But let’s see them in detail.

Xiaomi has decided to make the glasses completely wireless, integrating a proprietary low latency communication system that guarantees a delay of just 3 ms in the connection between the glasses and the smartphone and up to 50 ms for the complete data exchangethus offering latencies very similar to those that can be obtained with a cable.

All this is supported by the presence of the platform Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1or the same chip that we find on Meta Quest 2, all enclosed in a structure in a magnesium-lithium alloy and carbon fiber elements which, including the special silicon-oxygen anode battery, weighs just 126 grams. The frame has been designed to adapt perfectly to the movements of the head and the shape of the face, in order to be as comfortable as possible.

The displays mounted on Xiaomi’s AR Glass are also particularly interesting, since they are the first in the sector to offer a resolution retina. This is achieved thanks to panels MicroOLED which guarantee a angular resolution of 58 PPD (pixel per degree, therefore pixel per degree) which is very close to 60 PPD which allow the human eye to no longer distinguish the granularity of the images.

The panels can count on a system of prisms that use 3 surfaces to reflect the images in the lenses, offering very high image clarity and a peak brightness of 1,200 nits. But not only that, since the electrochromic lenses they are able to adapt to ambient light conditions and also offer a highly immersive mode that allows them to be rendered completely dark to improve the visibility of the contentswhile their transparency comes in handy during the use of AR experiences.

The real strength of this Xiaomi concept concerns the development of a gesture system that allows precise control – even with one hand – of everything that happens in the glasses interface. Thanks to a special finger tracking system, the AR Glass can be controlled in a very intuitive way and even typing texts is made much easier. This, for example, uses the inside of the fingers as if it were a real T9-style keyboard (Xiaomi bases its example on the 9-key Chinese keyboard, but the principle is very similar) on which you can type with the thumb of the same hand. It is certainly a much more intuitive and effective system than the classic floating QWERTY that we find today in many AR and VR devices.

The micro gestures – as Xiaomi defines them – therefore allow you to have full control of the system even when opening applications, browsing pages, changing apps and much more, all without going through the connected smartphone. All this is made possible by the integration of a low power AON camerawhich allows you to make the continuous tracking of gestures. Of course, everything can still be controlled from the smartphone, but this is only an alternative option, and not the main one.

2023 will be the year that more and more AR devices start to hit the market and that is about to highlight the first big unknown of this sector: content. Xiaomi knows this and has thought of her glasses as such an extension of the devices already presenttaking advantage of AR capabilities to propose larger screens and at the same time that do not isolate the user from the environment in which he is located.

For example, it will be possible to exploit them to better see the contents of platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, whose windows can be resized at will using the aforementioned gestures. Xiaomi also focuses a lot on integration within its ecosystem Share me and imagine a scenario where the user can literally grab the content shown on the TV to move it to the glasses and continue to see it by freeing the TV or while it is in motion, but not only.

Another of the hypothesized scenarios is the one in which the glasses become the main connected home control system: for example, think of looking at a smart lamp and seeing the controls appear to adjust its brightness, color or turn it on and off, or even being able to adjust the volume of a speaker simply by looking at it and making a gesture. Speaking of audio, the glasses support spatial audio.

Finally, Xiaomi guarantees the compatibility of its Wireless AR Glasses Discovery Edition with devices that support Snapdragon Spaces and with, of course, the new Xiaomi 13 series. The glasses will be offered in titanium color and with 3 nose pads of different sizes, as well as the possibility of adding a clip which also allows their use by people suffering from myopia. At the moment there are no precise indications regarding the actual availability of this concept (despite the details already mentioned), but Xiaomi has confirmed that, in addition to Snapdragon Spaces, the glasses are also compatible with OpenXR and the Microsoft MRTK development environment.