Xiaomi AR Smart Glass Hands-On: True Wireless Augmented Reality

Mobile World Congress 2023 just kicked off in Barcelona, and Xiaomi is already making its presence known with a physical live event to launch its Xiaomi 13 flagship phone series and a surprise announcement of a prototype AR (augmented reality) smart glasses that are truly wireless.

The keyword here is “prototype,” because the glasses apparently won’t be going on sale anytime soon. I am not sure why, because I tested it behind closed doors, and it felt more polished and “ready” than most proof-of-concept prototypes.

The official name of the glasses is Xiaomi Wireless AR Smart Glass Explorer Edition, and as the name gives away, the glasses are completely wireless. This alone is impressive, as all other consumer AR glasses from brands like nReal and TCL require a cable to plug into a host device. Xiaomi engineers say they developed a proprietary low-latency communication link that allow wireless connection between the smart glass and host device to achieve latency of just 50 millisecond, which is low enough that the average human cannot detect lag. I demoed the glasses for 30 minutes and I sure couldn’t tell.

The smart glass uses a pair of MicroOLED displays to pump out visuals with 58PPD (pixel-per-degree), which again, is high resolution enough that the human eyes won’t be able to detect visuals. Content being broadcast in front of my face looked vibrant and vivid, and appeared to be floating in front of me.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chip which was specifically designed for these mixed reality/augmented reality headwear is used to power the smart glass. Considering the tech and the slightly larger-than-usual size, the glasses can be considered lightweight at 126g.

Xiaomi says it was able to keep weight low (relatively) by constructing the glasses with magnesium alloy and carbon fiber, as well as a self-designed silicon-oxygen anode battery that is smaller in size.

The smart glass features two cameras and a sensor on its front side that are used to map out the physical space in front of the wearer, after which the glasses can project visuals and graphics onto the “real world.” The demo I tried included a shooting game in which I planted a machine gun base station on a real table in front of me, and I had to shoot down alien type animals that were walking towards me. Another demo had me toggle a virtual switch to turn on or off a real Xiaomi lamp that was in the hotel room.

Controls can be done via interacting with the connected smartphone, or with hand gestures. The latter is another futuristic breakthrough. So far, AR Glasses either require users to wear gloves or hand sensors for hand movements, but Xiaomi’s solution has the sensors detecting my arm, hand, and fingers if I stick it out in front of the glasses.

I can also simply use the Xiaomi smart glass as wearable display, either playing a video on an immersive huge virtual screen, or have multiple windows floating in front of me. The ability to stick out my arm to move the windows around felt truly futuristic. Xiaomi engineers likened the experience to Iron Man from the Marvel moves. I have an older reference: it feels like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

When viewing videos, you may want to block out the transparent view of the glasses to get more immersion (so the video is just floating on a black screen). Most consumer AR glasses now have a physical lens cover. Xiaomi’s prototype instead uses electrochromic technology to dim the lens.

I came away from the demo session highly impressed and wishing these would get released soon. I have been using AR glasses daily (I use the nReal Air) as a wearable display, and the cable that is needed constantly gets in the way. Even in its current form now, Xiaomi’s Wireless AR Smart Glass Explorer Edition already can do more than any other AR eyewear on the market right now.

I asked a Xiaomi rep why the company make these prototype products that apparently aren’t ready for release anytime soon (the company in the last year has introduced a prototype robot dog, and a few years before, a phone with a wraparound display). The rep says Xiaomi’s engineers like to dabble in prototypes to push boundaries and to test what’s possible. And even if the actual prototype product won’t ever be released as a mass consumer product, the tech behind the product can be refined for later Xiaomi products.

He cites the robot dog (officially named Xiaomi Cyber Dog) as an example: clearly, most people will not be buying a robot dog anytime soon, but the machine learning chip and scene recognition tech powering the dog can be used down the line in other Xiaomi products that have more practical real-world use.

And ultimately, “it’s just fun to build these things,” he said. I agree.