by Mobile World Congress (MWC) is a platform for the biggest brands to unveil the cutting-edge technological innovation that will pave the way for the coming years. Taking the stage to unveil an AR headset, Xiaomi sent ripples through the industry, littered with bulky headsets for wireless AR consumption. The Chinese OEM has launched a stylish, lightweight pair of AR glasses that you wouldn’t mind wearing in public.
Designed to herald a “wireless AR ear,” this compact headset called the Wireless AR Glass Discover Edition is designed to connect to the user’s smartphone. Although it’s a prototype for now, Yanko Design managed a hands-on implementation with wireless glasses at MWC, and we think Xiaomi has done a great job with the design and feel: the glasses look almost ready for the market, but we recommend don’t Don’t start setting your property assigned for just that.
Designer: Xiaomi
The Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition weighs only 126 grams or 4.4 ounces on the nose, which is a pittance compared to the bulkiest AR/VR headsets we’ve seen in our time. This lightweight yet robust design is made possible by the use of magnesium-lithium alloy and carbon fiber construction.
You can cut the design, use light materials in the construction, but the biggest weight in such a portable device is its battery. Xiaomi has carefully installed an in-house developed silicon-oxygen anode battery that reduces physical load, translating into minimal weight gain in the device.
The Xiaomi AR Glass Discovery Edition is powered by a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 processor under the hood and features a pair of micro OLED displays with retina resolution and up to 1200 nit brightness. Xiaomi says its AR glasses boast 58 pixels per degree (PPD) which is more than double the PPD in Meta’s Quest Pro running on the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1.
Thanks to the retina-level display, these AR glasses offer a truly immersive visual experience. The glasses allow the user to combine the virtual and real worlds, gaining seamless access either with a single click. For this, the front lenses are electrochromic that adapt to the lighting conditions, depending on the user’s preference. They can be turned off when the user wants to focus on the virtual world.
Xiaomi has released a video presentation of the AR Glass Discovery Edition that showcases many of the features the glasses have to offer. This includes specially developed hand gestures in addition to smartphone-based touch controls. The hand tracking feature allows the user to open applications, drag and drop virtual objects in the physical world, scan pages with their finger and do much more.
However, the idea of Xiaomi’s AR glasses might seem exciting. There’s no word on price or availability at the moment, so we’ll just have to live off the video presentation and images below.
