In the articulated ecosystem of Xiaomi products, a pair of smart glasses could not be missing, a device launched by a growing number of companies – see the recent Ray Ban / Facebook proposal – while remaining confined to a niche market. The Chinese manufacturer has anticipated what its smart glasses will look like and what they can do with a press release: this is not yet the official launch, but it is confirmation that the project is under development and that the device will hit the market. with time to be defined.
The core of the hardware platform is the tiny 0.13″ MicroLED screen located inside the right bar of the glasses: it emits a light signal of more than 2 million nits that, thanks to wave optics technology conductive, reaches the lens (right), giving the user the illusion of having a much larger screen in front of him.
The choice to adopt a MicroLED screen is dictated by the characteristics of this type of panel: each pixel is illuminated individually and this allows for brighter screens and deeper blacks; they also have a higher pixel density and longer lifespan than OLEDs, features that contribute to a more compact display that is easier to integrate into the frame of glasses. The display chip measures just 2.4 x 2.02mm (about the size of a grain of rice).
Even the maximum value of 2 million peaks is dictated by the need to ensure that a sufficient amount of light can pass through the optical structure of the articulated waveguide before reaching the user’s eye, even in direct sunlight. . With this technology, light is refracted 180° towards the human eye by an etched lattice structure on the inner surface of the lens. Therefore, it is not necessary to resort to complicated systems that use mirrors to deflect the luminous flux. A compromise to accept so that everything works better is that the images reproduced on the screen are monochrome.
Xiaomi Presents its Smart Glasses
Xiaomi glasses will not be a simple secondary screen of the smartphone, but an independent smart device. The company points out that inside the glasses there are a total of 497 components, including sensors and communication modules. Therefore, it has a processing capacity independent of that of the smartphone.
More specifically, the Xiaomi Smart Glasses include, these features , which weigh 51 grams, :
- quad core ARM processor
- battery
- Touch panel
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules
- 5 megapixel camera
- microphone and speaker
- Android operating system
Specifically, Xiaomi’s smart glasses can display notifications and messages, make phone calls, take photos and translate texts in real time, and support turn-by-turn navigation, all by overlaying digital information on top of the real-world view. Technically they are, therefore, augmented reality glasses. To manage the functions of the software, in order to make the display of information useful, but never too intrusive, there will be the digital assistant XiaoAi AI Assistant. Excellent engineering, at least on paper, while we can discuss the aesthetics.
