Oppo Air Glass 3 XR Prototype Glasses Powered by Its ‘AndesGPT’ AI Model Unveiled at MWC 2024

At the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2024 (MWC 2024) being held in Barcelona, ​​Spain, smartphone giant Oppo has showcased a new product that is still in the prototype stage. Called Air Glass 3, the augmented reality glasses aim to infuse artificial intelligence (AI) into Oppo’s product line-up while opening the doors to the world of augmented reality. In fact, this seems to be Oppo’s bet on augmented reality and AI after Apple finally launched its Vision Pro headset earlier this year for the US market.

Oppo’s Air Glass 3 is not an entirely new concept from Oppo. The Chinese smartphone giant showed off a similar concept called Air glass with a unique design of cicada wing and micro projector in 2021 at its INNO Day conference in Shenzhen. The company also showed off the Air Glass 2 at MWC 2023. The ideas seem to have evolved over the past few years to what is currently being showcased at the ongoing MWC 2024.

The Air Glass 3 looks like a regular pair of glasses, but has a built-in display that allows users to view digital content superimposed on real-world settings. Augmented reality can be used for navigation or even to view incoming messages or calls.

Interacting with the wearable is via both voice and touch. Oppo claims to have successfully used its own large language model (LLM), called AndesGPT, to power its voice assistant and the necessary generative AI functions. The voice assistant is only available in China for now, but it can perform basic information searches and have proper conversations to help the user.

Another way to interact with the Oppo Air Glass 3 wearable is through touch. According to Oppo, users will be able to touch the frame handles on the sides to interact and navigate with the on-screen content seen on the full-color display. The glasses weigh 50 grams and the display has a peak brightness of more than 1000 nits. There are four microphones on the bezel to assist with voice functions, as well as speakers for audio output.

More recently, Meta also released a pair of smart sunglasses in collaboration with Ray-Ban. Although they look similar to those announced by Oppo, they rely on a camera and AI to capture photos or video, and are mainly designed to stream whatever the wearer is looking at with the glasses using “Hey Meta” commands. What the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses lack compared to the Oppo smart glasses is a display, as it relies solely on voice commands and prompts for control.