Lenovo’s Legion Glasses promise big-screen gaming wherever you are
With Lenovo's Legion Glasses, portable gaming doesn't have to mean leaving the big screen behind. They also pair nicely with the Legion Go handheld.
AR Startup Brilliant Labs Secures $3M Seed Funding from Oculus & Siri Co-founders
Brilliant Labs, an AR startup working to integrate AI into daily life, announced that it has raised $3 million in seed funding which it will use to expand its team and invest in R&D for its open-source, AI-powered smartglasses.
The funding round was led by Brendan Iribe, co-founder of Oculus, Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri, Eric Migicovsky, founder of Pebble, and Plug & Play Ventures, among others.
Founded in 2019, Brilliant Labs describes its design approach as “embodied intelligence.” Its one-eyed ‘Monocle’ smartglasses dev kit is an open-source device which began shipping in February 2023, offering up a single-lens design that’s supposed to clip onto existing eyewear. For now, Monocle boasts a six-hour battery life with a charging case, which includes fast charging technology.
Similar to Google Glass, Brilliant Labs’ Monocle serves up text via a single waveguide, doing things like letting you see important information while remaining present in the moment. Monocle also includes an embedded microphone, computer vision-ready camera, and hackable FPGA accelerator chip.
In addition to the latest funding round, Brilliant Labs also announced the launch of arGPT, the company’s first ChatGPT integration for Monocle, letting developers directly use the generative AI as well as build apps on top of arGPT.
“We believe that Generative AI is the key enabler for AR, so at Brilliant Labs, we’re building an open-source ecosystem to support developers and creatives reimagining the future, and Monocle is just the beginning. We’re excited to see what developers create with it,” said Bobak Tavangar, Founder and CEO of Brilliant Labs. “We’re thrilled to have the support of our investors as we usher in a new era of embodied intelligence – the intersection of AI and AR.”
Other investors in its seed funding round include Steve Sarowitz, founder of Paylocity and Chairman of Wayfarer Studios, Nirav Patel, former core team member at Oculus and founder of Framework, Francisco Tolmasky, member of the original iPhone team, and Moveon Technologies.
Want to know the difference between smartglasses and AR glasses? Check out our primer on what’s what (and why everyone is confused).
Google Discontinues Glass Enterprise Edition Smartglasses
Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2, the company’s work-focused version of its iconic but once maligned smartglasses, is being discontinued.
Google says in a device support FAQ that, starting March 15th, it will no longer sell Glass Enterprise 2, adding that it will only support the device until September 15th, 2023.
While the company says it’s not pushing out any more software for Glass Enterprise Edition after that date, however its most recent system images will remain publicly available until at least April 1st, 2024.
Launched in 2017, Google Glass for enterprise was a revival of sorts, as the company had ceased production of the storied device in 2015.
Starting in 2012, the company was hoping to seed the device among prosumers with its Glass Explorer Editions, although public backlash spawned the term “glasshole,” putting a severe dent in Google’s ambitions to launch a more consumer-focused version of the device.
Google hasn’t explained why it’s killing off Glass for enterprise. In response to PC Mag, a Google spokesperson left this comment:
“For years, we’ve been building AR into many Google products and we’ll continue to look at ways to bring new, innovative AR experiences across our product portfolio.”
To be fair, Google probably has bigger fish to fry, and the aging smartglasses platform may well be replaced sooner rather than later. Google said last summer it would be conducting real world tests of its early AR prototypes, emphasizing things like real-time translation and AR turn-by-turn navigation.
There’s also the issue of emerging competition. Apple’s upcoming mixed reality (MR) headset is rumored to arrive sometime in mid-2023, while Meta is prepping multiple generations of its MR Quest headsets.
Granted, these MR headsets probably won’t be the model workhorses, although many companies see MR headsets as a steppingstone in preparation for the sort of all-day AR glasses industry is hoping to commercialize in the near future.
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To be clear, Google Glass is a style of smartglass(es) and not an AR device as such; Glass provides a single heads-up display (HUD) that doesn’t place digital imagery naturally in the user’s perceived environment, like with HoloLens 2 or Magic Leap 2, but rather flatly projects the sort of useful information you might also see on a smartwatch. You can learn more about the differences between AR headsets and smartglasses here.
Viture’s Gaming XR Glasses Surpass $2m on Kickstarter
Smart glasses are on the verge of taking off thanks to companies like Qualcomm, Nreal and Ray-Ban but what they actually offer can vary wildly. Smart glasses startup Viture is firmly focused on one particular aspect to gain customers and that’s gaming, and it seems to be working very well considering the Kickstarter it’s running has surpassed $2 million USD, easily smashing its initial goal.
The Kickstarter launched at the end of April looking to raise $20,000 USD (£16k GBP) and is currently sitting on $2.7 million (£2.1 million) with a few days left to spare. So what are the Viture One XR Glasses and why have they created so much buzz. Well, even though they say XR (eXtended Reality) which suggests augmented reality (AR) capabilities so they can interact and are aware of the environment around you, this isn’t the case. Instead, the Viture One is more akin to wearing a giant 120″ virtual screen on your face, offering 1080p resolution, 60 fps, spatial sound, 5G/Wifi and streaming features.
It’s that latter part which really sets these smart glasses apart and why Viture has been heavily leaning on the gaming aspect of the device. Because this allows owners to stream content from their PlayStations or Xboxes straight into the glasses, giving them a big-screen viewing experience wherever they are.
To manage all of this the Viture One’s don’t pack all the features inside the glasses themselves, there’s an additional unit that hangs around your neck and connects via a magnetic cable. The neckband houses the heavier components like the battery (3200mAh) so that the Viture One’s are lightweight and comfortable, weighing in at 78g. The neckband has its own controls to cycle through menus while the glasses themselves house myopia adjustment (so you don’t need your glasses) and the ability to dim or brighten the front electrochromic film (for better immersion).
“Portable gaming is on the rise, and we wanted to be the first XR solution that truly made sense for gamers — something that looked great, was stylish, lightweight and affordable while handling any AAA games on the go,” said David Jiang, co-founder and CEO of VITURE. “The VITURE One will be to XR what the iPhone was to smartphones.”
But it isn’t just about play-anywhere gaming. The Viture One neckband includes most major video streaming services pre-installed such as Disney+, Apple Tv, Hulu, Prime Video, and more.
While the final retail price of the Viture One will start from $549 when it goes on sale later this year – slated to be October 2022 – backing the Kickstarter campaign can save you up to $150 on the final price. For example, the Cloud Pack Early Bird (best for cloud gaming) tier costs $529 rather than $678.
With the Kickstarter campaign a success, gmw3 will keep you updated on how well Viture’s story progresses.
T-Mobile Selects 6 Startups to Create 5G AR Experiences Using Snapdragon Spaces
Qualcomm launched its Snapdragon Spaces platform last year for developers to create augmented reality (AR) experiences for the company’s smart glasses. Bringing on collaborators like Square Enix and T-Mobile, the latter has announced its T-Mobile Accelerator and the six participating startups looking to create new 5G-enabled AR apps.
The participants will use the Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform to develop, test and bring to market new AR products and services, aided by T-Mobile engineers and Qualcomm experts. They’ll be using the first smart glasses to support the platform; the Lenovo ThinkReality A3. The six companies to join the programme are Beem, Krikey, Mawari, Mohx-Games, Pluto, and VictoryXR.
- Beem – Specialises in live and on-demand communication in AR.
- Krikey – An AR gaming and social media app which launched its first title Yaatra in 2020 and then avatar NFTs in 2022.
- Mawari – A Japanese startup providing an AR-focused streaming SDK.
- Mohx-Games – A company focused on immersive AR gaming and entertainment experiences.
- Pluto – Offers Pluto VR, a shared presence communication app and PlutoSphere, for streaming high-end PC VR games without a PC.
- VictoryXR – Immersive education in VR & AR.
“Smart glasses will completely change how we connect and experience the world around us,” said John Saw, EVP of Advanced & Emerging Technologies at T-Mobile in a statement. “With T-Mobile 5G we have the capacity and performance needed to power high-bandwidth, immersive AR experiences for smart glasses, but it’s the developers and entrepreneurs that will bring these new applications to life.”
These won’t be the only AR startups to join the initiative, more will be added on a rolling basis. The programme is designed to help build an ecosystem of AR experiences as smart glasses become more readily available.
While Qualcomm doesn’t build its own smart glasses, the company does make reference designs like the XR1 AR Smart Viewer for OEMs to utilise as a based model. Qualcomm has also launched in recent months its $100 million USD Snapdragon Metaverse Fund to help finance new developer initiatives.
As further details regarding the T-Mobile Accelerator are released gmw3 will keep you updated.
Mojo Vision Raises Additional $45M to Put Smart Contacts in the Eyes of Athletes
Mojo Vision announced it’s raised an additional $45 million in its Series B-1 investment round, something the company says will support further development of Mojo Lens, its early stage smart contact lens.
Mojo Lens is ostensibly years away for commercialization, however the company announced at CES 2022 that it’s taking a step forward by partnering with a number of fitness brands to explore how to better integrate its smart contact lenses into sports and training. Mojo Vision has partnered with Adidas Running, Trailforks, Wearable X, Slopes and 18Birdies.
“We are making important progress in developing our smart contact lens technology, and we continue to research and identify new market potential for this groundbreaking platform,” said Steve Sinclair, SVP of product and marketing of Mojo Vision. “Our partnerships with these leading brands will give us valuable insights into user behavior in the sports and fitness market. The goal is for these collaborations to deliver athletes an entirely new form factor with performance data that is more accessible and useful in the moment.”
The company is also currently working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through its Breakthrough Devices Program, a voluntary program for certain medical devices that provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions.
Much like Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface (BCI) startup Neuralink, Mojo Vision sees early applications first targeting those afflicted with bodily impairments; in Mojo’s case, it aims to use Mojo Lens to create enhanced image overlays to alleviate certain visual impairments.
The fresh Series B-1 includes investments from Amazon Alexa Fund, PTC, Edge Investments, HiJoJo Partners, and others. Mojo Vision’s existing investors include NEA, Liberty Global Ventures, Advantech Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures, Motorola Solutions, and Open Field Capital. This brings the company’s total lifetime investment to $205 million.
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Xiaomi Unveils Smart Glasses Vision Featuring MicroLED Waveguides
Xiaomi is one of China’s leading technology companies, previously partnering with Facebook during the Oculus Go era to create the Mi VR Standalone for its home market. Today, the company has teased plans for a future entry into the smart glasses market, a very compact looking device brimming with tech.
Simply called Xiaomi Smart Glasses, the device is being designed as an augmented reality (AR) system that can connect to a smartphone to display key information like calls and messages. Crucially, Xiaomi also notes that the smart glasses won’t just function as a second screen, it’ll have independent functionality to make it a true smart wearable supposedly.
The core component of the (very thin looking) Xiaomi Smart Glasses is its microLED optical waveguide technology, allowing for a compact, monochrome (green) display solution with a peak brightness of 2 million nits. The information displayed won’t be in 3D, however, as the waveguide only features on the right side of the glasses, on the other are components including the camera.
Xiaomi claims the smart glasses “integrates a total of 497 components including miniature sensors and communication modules,” powered by a quad-core ARM processor. Those modules include a touch pad and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, all weighing in at a respectable 51g. Then there’s the built-in dual beamforming microphone and speaker to take calls. And let’s not forget the 5MP camera that can be used for taking pictures as well as services like translating text.
When it comes to all those software options Xiaomi plans on ensuring the glasses are feature-rich. Apart from getting those basic notifications off your phone, the device can be used for navigation on its own, you can tap the side to take a pic or use the glasses hands-free with the XiaoAi AI Assistant – the company envisions this as the primary interaction method.
Sound too good to be true considering others like Nreal Light and Rokid still have to cable to a smartphone, whilst Facebook’s new Ray-Ban Stories isn’t even AR? While the spec roster of the Xiaomi Smart Glasses is impressive, the announcement is missing crucial details such as the battery life, the actual ARM processor and when the company plans on making it available.
The announcement could be to get the jump on Apple which is holding a press event later today, widely expected to feature an AR component considering some of the PR teasing that’s been going on. When further details have been made available regarding Xiaomi and Apple’s AR plans, VRFocus will let you know.
Xiaomi Teases Smart Glasses Concept with MicroLED Display & 5MP Camera
Chinese tech giant Xiaomi unveiled its first pair of smart glasses today, sensibly called Xiaomi Smart Glasses. They aren’t a product you can buy for now, as the company calls the concept device “an engineer’s look into an advanced future.” With the world’s largest smartphone manufacture expressing interest though, it may mean we’ll be hearing a lot more about consumer smart glasses in the years to come.
Hot on the heels of Facebook & Ray-Ban’s Stories camera glasses, Xiaomi released a video showing off its own concept smart eyewear which not only includes a 5MP camera and speakers, but also a microLED display that serves up information such as notifications, turn-by-turn directions, and real-time text and photo translations.
Based around a quad-core ARM processor running Android, Xiaomi Smart Glasses are said to contain a microLED on silicon chip measuring 2.4mm × 2.02mm, something the company says is roughly the size of a grain of rice, with individual pixels sized at 4μm.
For a concept that may or may not be built, Xiaomi doesn’t boast specs like a full RGB display, rather showing one in green monochrome that’s supposed to optimize for brightness—2 million nits, Xiaomi says—serving info to the user’s right eye via waveguide optics.
Xiaomi Smart Glasses house a single 5MP camera for taking photos and doing machine learning tasks like translating text between languages. Like Ray-Ban Stories, an adjacent indicator light is included so others know when its in-use. The whole package is said to weigh in at only 51g, which is about the weight of two alkaline AA batteries.
The company is positioning it as a standalone device that won’t act as a “second screen” for your smartphone. That’s a bit of a stretch for now though since it only has a few functions, such as displaying basic notifications, incoming calls, turn-by-turn navigation, taking photos, and serving up what it claims is “real-time text and photo translations.”
Optical wearables such as smart glasses and AR headsets (learn about the difference here) are still in such an early state that input is far from solved. Xiaomi says its primary input will be handled by XiaoAi AI voice assistant, which can do things like audio-to-text transcription. It’s also said to contain a touchpad, which is ostensibly integrated into one of the glasses’ arms.
It’s uncertain if Xiaomi Smart Glasses are simply a “what if” at this point, or if it’s truly looking to productize the fledgling wearable in the near future. Xiaomi generally seems at home making smaller design risks to better differentiate itself from Samsung and Apple, with things like retracting selfie cameras and edge-to-edge displays making headlines. That said, if Xiaomi is gearing up to enter a market, you can bet they’ll bring their patent one-upmanship to the table in any class of smart device they produce.
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Ray-Ban Stories is Facebook’s £299 Entry Into the Smart Glasses Market
Well, that leak earlier today turned out to be right on the money. Facebook and Ray-Ban have officially announced Ray-Ban Stories, their smart glasses collaboration featuring three style varients, built-in cameras and much more, all available from £299 GBP/$299 USD.
Combining Facebook’s technical know-how with EssilorLuxottica’s – Ray-Ban’s parent company – styling, Ray-Ban Stories is their first foray into the burgeoning consumer smart glasses market. Available in three frame flavours – Round, Wayfarer and Meteor – as you might expect from Ray-Ban the options don’t stop there with a selection of frame and lens colours (5 colours, 6 colours and 4 colours respectively).
But what’s underneath all that fancy styling? The Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses feature dual integrated 5MP cameras that allow you to take photos (2592×1944 pixels) and up to 30-second videos (1184×1184 pixels at 30 FPS) using either a button located on the right arm or by using Facebook Assistant voice commands. Handy if you don’t want to keep looking at your phone. Storage-wise Facebook hasn’t given a GB capacity, just that the glasses can store 500 photos and 30 videos. And just so others know when you’re recording and LED will illuminate when recording is in process.
And that’s just the start of the tech built-in. The smart glasses have open-ear speakers built-in and a three-microphone audio array so you can take calls easily on the go and record decent audio for all those social videos. Oh and let’s not forget the touch control housed in the right arm so you can pause and play music, even turning the volume up and down. WiFi and Bluetooth are also built-in.
A new bit of tech wouldn’t be complete without its own app with Facebook View complementing the package. It’s designed to make importing, editing, and sharing captured content easy; whether that’s to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat and more.
Along with all those tech features and style combinations, Ray-Ban Stories come with a portable charging case to keep those expensive smart glasses safe and ready for use. The case itself can be charged with the supplied USB-C cable. Actual specifics including battery duration and charge time haven’t been released.
Augmented reality (AR) glasses these smart glasses are not but with a multi-year partnership in place Ray-Ban Stories are the first step towards that goal. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Facebook & Ray-Ban Launch $300 Stories Glasses, a Hybrid Between Snap Spectacles & Bose Frames
Facebook and Ray-Ban today unveiled Stories, a new line of tech-forward glasses the companies hope will pave the way for a future of smart and stylish AR devices. Stories appear to fit in the same category as the first three generations of Snap’s Spectacles, but also include integrated audio like Bose Frames, making them a little less smart than we had initially hoped—but a lot smarter than most.
Stories are being offered in three distinct flavors: Wayfarer, Round, and Meteor, all of which appear to be pretty similar to original Ray-Ban frame designs. They’re launching today at $300 direct from Ray-Ban as well as official online retailers in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Italy and Australia.
Stories look pretty sleek, which is partly because they don’t have any form of display within, as they feature the sort of lenses you might find in any normal pair of sunglasses or prescription specs. Instead, Stories includes dual 5 megapixel cameras on the temples that let you capture sterescopic video and still images. A single button on the right temple is used to start and stop 30-second video recordings, and take photos.
Facebook is advertising a storage of about thirty 30-second videos or 500 photos, which is said to be kept locally encrypted on the device itself. That’s the only storage metric available to us, so there’s no word on how large that space physically is in GBs.
The frames also house microphones and integrated speakers that stream audio over Bluetooth 5.0, which will let you listen to music or podcasts, and take calls in addition to voice recognition stuff like saying “Hey Facebook, take a video.”
That Facebook Assistant integration and the Facebook View app come part an parcel with Stories, the latter of which acts as your content management platform where you can import, edit, create and share captures.
Check out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reveal Stories in the video below:
As for privacy, a capture LED on the right temple indicates when Stories are recording, and they also feature a physical off button as well on the glasses’ left strut.
Models are offered in both sunglasses versions with a variety of colors or clear lenses featuring clear with blue light filter, brown gradient, green, grey, blue polarized, and transition lenses.
A magnetic charging case also ships with Stories, although the battery situation is far from clear, both in terms of on-device runtime and added runtime with the case.
Here’s a few basic specs:
- Photo stills: 2,592 x 1,944px
- Video camera: Minimum 1,184 x 1,184px@30fps
- Dual micro speakers
- 3 Microphone Audio Array
- WIFI 802.11 Ac, 2.45/5 Ghz
- Bluetooth 5.0
- OS Compatibility – IOS 13 / Android 8.1 Minimum
- Charging Case – USB-C charging
Facebook seems to be playing a little fast and loose by specifically calling Stories “smart glasses.” To be fair, Stories are basically a new product segment that aim to bridge the gap between camera glasses like earlier iterations of Snap Spectacles and audio sunglasses like Bose Frames. Smarter glasses, maybe?
Unlike augmented reality, which shows the user digital information that’s presented as if exists in reality itself (think Microsoft HoloLens, Nreal Light, Magic Leap 1), smartglasses typically present actionable information to the user via a small screen that functions as a heads-up display (HUD). Much like a smartwatch, smartglasses are supposed to provide info like text messages, biometrics, incoming phone calls, or turn-by-turn directions. Examples of smartglasses include Google Glass, North Focals, and a number of devices available from Vuzix.
If you want to learn more about smartglasses and AR, check out our primer that tackles that very issue.
This is only the first of what Facebook calls a “multi-year partnership” with Ray-Ban parent company EssilorLuxottica, so it’s likely this is only the first of what will become an evolving product segment towards smarter devices than this.
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