Oppo Air Glass 3 XR Headset Prototype “Knows What You’re Talking About”

Oppo has shown off a new concept XR headset, the Air Glass 3, just as the global manufacturers are showing off their latest gadgets and AI capabilities at the MWC 2024 exhibition. In a teaser posted online, the company shows how it imagines people going about their day while using the concept headset to pull up information about real-world objects and situations, and dealing with ambient notifications and reminders.

The latest concept headset appears to be not much thicker than a standard pair of glasses, except for its nose bridge and stalks. The lenses seem wider than usual, extending around where the stalks join the frame. The entire unit is said to weigh just 50g, making it the world’s lightest pair of binocular AR glasses.

Oppo also refers to the Air Glass 3 as an “assisted reality” headset that can function as a personal everyday smart assistant. It can handle generative AI workloads using Oppo’s own AndesGPT model via a smartphone app. This multimodal AI model is said to allow the device to understand text, images, video and audio in order to interpret complex situations. 

Users can trigger the assistant by lightly tapping one of the device’s temples, and it also supports touch interaction. Oppo’s teaser shows a music playback widget on screen, a list of reminders, an alert for an incoming message, transcription of a voice search query and its results, each occupying a small portion of the centre of the display area when visible. A “reverse sound field design” is said to enable high-quality audio with privacy safeguards, and four microphones will pick up voice commands as well as ambient audio. 

The Air Glass 3 uses what Oppo calls a self-developed resin waveguide with a refractive index of 1.70 to implement displays in the lenses that are bright and legible enough for everyday use without interfering with the wearer’s vision. Oppo calls this the best full-colour display of its kind. Peak brightness is described as “more than 1000 nits”. 

The AndesGPT model was announced by Oppo at a developers’ conference in late 2023. This is what powers the AI Eraser feature on the recently launched Oppo Find X7 series smartphones. Oppo has also teased that its upcoming Reno 11 series and Find N3 will benefit from multiple AI features.

The company opened its own Oppo AI Center to promote AI research and development, on February 20. At MWC 2024, it is emphasising its partnerships with Qualcomm, MediaTek, Microsoft, and Google, amongst others, in developing AI features.