With a lightweight pair of glasses, one can access everyday outfits and life information, peering through the real world to glimpse the underlying pathways. This is not a scene from a science fiction novel but a promise of the future offered by AR technology. Since the launch of Google Glass in 2012, this revolutionary product has ushered in a new era of technology.
Star products like HoloLens and Magic Leap have showcased immense potential in industrial scenarios, igniting infinite imaginations for consumer AR. However, they have failed to truly penetrate the public market, becoming part of ordinary users’ daily lives.
So, what stage have AR glasses reached today? What else is needed to enter the consumer market?
Currently, AR devices on the market are either too bulky, failing to meet comfort requirements for daily wear, or their designs are too conspicuous to blend into everyday life. These challenges have made the popularization of AR in the consumer sector sluggish. With ongoing technological advancements, the concept of lightweight design has gradually become a consensus in the industry. We are witnessing a shift from “helmet” to “glasses” in consumer-grade AR devices, heralding a new era of more natural and convenient AR experiences.
The Essential Lightness of Consumer AR
From a user-centric perspective, consumer-grade AR must inherently possess the attribute of being “light.” As wearable devices, AR glasses face more daunting challenges than smartphones:
- Design: Must be natural and aesthetically pleasing to fit into everyday outfits.
- Weight: Needs to be lightweight, approaching the feel of sunglasses or regular prescription glasses.
- Comfort: Should ensure comfort during prolonged wear.
- Display Performance: Must also offer excellent display performance.
These seemingly ordinary requirements represent a longstanding technical gap that consumer-grade AR has struggled to bridge. The key to overcoming these challenges lies in lightweight design.
Reflecting on the development of AR glasses, we can clearly see the importance of lightness. Google Glass, as a modern pioneer in AR glasses, faced controversy over its shape and price but deserves credit for its efforts in lightweight design. By adopting a monocular prism solution, Google Glass managed to keep its weight at 36g, a level acceptable to most users. This set an important standard: consumer-grade AR devices must consider users’ “wearing comfort.”
However, following Google Glass, the development of AR devices diverged from this standard. A wave of “helmet-style” AR devices like Daqri, Meta One, HoloLens, and Magic Leap emerged. While these products boasted richer functionalities and higher integration, their weight and size were akin to VR headsets, rendering them unsuitable for daily wear.
For instance, the Magic Leap One initially targeted the consumer market but shifted focus to the enterprise market just one year after its launch due to its bulky form factor and limited user experience.
Leaving aside the novelty of their functionalities, this case illustrates an enduring truth: consumers cannot accept a helmet-shaped AR product, no matter how powerful its features.
The Evolution from “Helmet” to “Glasses”
In recent years, AR terminal manufacturers have made numerous attempts to achieve lightweight design, showcasing a diverse array of products. A clear trend has emerged: AR products are transitioning from “helmets” to “glasses.” The choice of display and optical solutions plays a decisive role in determining the form factor of AR products.
Released in 2015, HoloLens 1 featured higher integration and employed an All-In-One design, housing computing power, power supply, and numerous sensors, allowing it to function independently. Such high integration could only be achieved in a helmet form factor. This design has influenced subsequent startups, including products like Yingchuang HALO, leading many current B2B AR products to still adopt helmet solutions.
For example, Meta 2 employed a more mature LCD panel with an off-axis optical solution to further reduce costs. Lenovo’s Mirage AR cleverly used a smartphone screen as an image source, creating a split-style helmet AR, reminiscent of early VR smartphone boxes.
It’s clear that while off-axis optical solutions tend to be cost-effective and usually offer a larger field of view (FOV), they result in larger modules and overall devices, conflicting with lightweight demands.
Simultaneously, the market continues to explore lightweight AR solutions, mainly divided into two categories: one led by Epson’s BT series with freeform prism products, and another spearheaded by ODG’s Birdbath solutions, currently adopted by brands like Thunderbird Innovation, Rokid, and Xreal. Compared to HoloLens and Magic Leap, these two solutions come closer to resembling everyday glasses, with greater public acceptance.
Nonetheless, freeform and Birdbath products still struggle to be used as daily wearables, especially as Birdbath’s light transmittance is very low, making them nearly unusable outdoors. Despite making strides in size and weight, users still tend to wear them only when there is a specific need, similar to helmet products.
Recognizing this limitation, several companies, including Intel with Vaunt and North Focals, made significant breakthroughs in 2018. These products closely resemble regular glasses and weigh between 50-60g, an acceptable range. Overall, they appeared promising, yet limited by maturity and cost, they failed to see widespread adoption.
During this time, more AR glasses based on waveguide solutions, such as OPPO Air Glass 2 and Vuzix Shield, emerged, fully leveraging the lightweight characteristics of waveguides and igniting a new wave of lightweight AR innovation. Recent AR glasses can match the appearance of everyday eyewear, achieving higher maturity and gradually increasing penetration rates, with new releases like Even Realities G1 and Meizu StarV Air2. According to IDC data, the domestic AR (Augmented Reality) and ER (Extended Reality) market saw a year-on-year shipment growth of 79.2% in the first half of 2024.
MicroLED Light Engine: Designed for All-Weather AR
The success of waveguides in this round is closely tied to the micro-display solutions paired with them. Previously, waveguide solutions primarily paired with LCoS and DLP light engines, which typically exceed 1cc in volume and have higher power consumption, making it difficult to meet the lightweight demands of AR glasses.
The MicroLED micro-display solution benefits from high-precision integrated circuits, offering advantages such as high brightness, small size, and low power consumption, making it an ideal match for lightweight and all-weather AR glasses.
Especially regarding size, the MicroLED light engine can achieve a volume of under 0.4cc, while LCoS typically ranges from 1-2cc, and DLP exceeds 2cc—an obvious contrast. The light engine is usually located at the pivot point of the glasses, meaning that the size of the light engine directly impacts the aesthetics of AR glasses; the smaller the engine, the smaller the pivot point, resulting in a more natural and aesthetically pleasing look, and vice versa.
Numerous terminal manufacturers have keenly recognized this trend and gradually acknowledged the feasibility of MicroLED combined with diffraction waveguide solutions in the consumer AR market. Brands like OPPO, Xiaomi, Meizu, Thunderbird Innovation, and Nubia have successively launched AR smart glasses featuring MicroLED solutions.
Notably, nearly all MicroLED AR glasses on the market today are sourced from JBD. JBD has already achieved mass production of two series of MicroLED light engines: Hummingbird (color) and Hummingbird Mini (monochrome). The Mini series currently has two generations of products, with the Hummingbird Mini II having a volume of only 0.15cc. The newly released Meizu StarV Air2 in September this year uses this product. Additionally, overseas manufacturers of lightweight AR glasses are consistently adopting JBD’s MicroLED light engines.
The Ultimate AI Carrier: The Infinite Potential of AI + AR
As large AI models and related ecosystems continue to expand, applications like ChatGPT, Claude, Doubao, and Kimi are gradually permeating our daily lives and work. They can assist in organizing meeting minutes, generating creative ideas, summarizing documents, and effectively serve as personal assistants.
With the increasing usability and convenience of AI applications, people are becoming more dependent on them.
In this AI-driven landscape, various forms of AI hardware have emerged, particularly pin-style and handheld products that have gained immense popularity over the past year. However, once these products reached the market, their limitations in usage led to a significant drop in consumer interest.
In contrast to handheld or pin-style AI devices, the integration of AI + AR glasses is seen as more promising in the industry. The reason lies in the fact that pin-style products require manual activation and project visuals onto the hand, while handheld devices also necessitate physical interaction such as touching and swiping. In contrast, glasses can facilitate hands-free interaction through voice commands, presenting visual information in a direct and intuitive manner.
Humans perceive and interact with the world primarily through visual information, which accounts for over 80% of our sensory input. Therefore, when AR glasses integrate AI applications, the experience becomes seamless and fluid, resulting in a profound difference in overall efficiency.
For example, a user wearing AR glasses can receive notifications from an AI assistant at any time, while AI models can utilize their enormous database and algorithm capabilities to provide AR glasses with personalized visual reminders and content suggestions based on users’ habits. This interaction not only serves as a personal assistant but can also serve as a bridge connecting users to the information they need, seamlessly blending the digital and real-world experiences.
Conclusion:
The future of AR glasses undoubtedly lies in the era of MicroLED technology, which promises an ultra-light and versatile experience. While the technology landscape continues to evolve, the integration of AI into AR opens up a world of infinite possibilities, driving us toward a more interconnected and intelligent future.
Simultaneously, the integration of AI technology endows lightweight AR glasses with greater capabilities, establishing them as the perfect carriers for AI. As technology continues to advance, these glasses will not only become a standard in our daily lives but also serve as a bridge between the physical and digital worlds, ushering us into a new era of intelligent interaction.
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