Nreal Light mixed reality glasses – a serious player in the game?

The consumer electronic show (CES) 2019 kicked off at the city of sin this week where over 180,000 tech geeks and enthusiasts gathered at the Las Vegas Convention Center to see the latest up and coming technology and gadgets. This year saw an impressive line-up that included foldable smartphones and flexible roll up OLED TVs. It saw flying taxis, wireless charging, robotics, drones, VR, AR plus a whole bunch more innovative and futuristic products being showcased by 4500+ exhibitors from start-ups to industry leaders.

Head in to South Hall 1 and you find Chinese company ‘Nreal’ showcasing their mixed reality headset, the Nreal Light.

The company said it has created a consumer-focused design that ensures a comfortable experience without affecting the display quality. Nreal’s mixed reality glasses are lightweight, just a tad heavier than your typical pair of sunglasses weighing in at approximately 3oz. This therefore makes them the world lightest mixed reality headset for consumers.

Nreal say the display has a 52 degree FOV, 1080p resolution for vivid 3D graphics, and low latency. The Nreal Light enables accurate and realistic interactions between digital avatars and the real world. This is because its powered by its Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm, and only two onboard cameras. Combine this with voice interactions, spatial sound and haptic-feedback controllers with up to 2 degrees of freedom. You’re talking a pretty powerful mixed reality experience that could well rival giant such as HoloLens.

In addition, Nreal Light comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Platform. This features a bunch of new architectures and subsystems engineered to deliver one-of-a-kind experiences that blur the lines between the physical and virtual worlds.

Hugo Swart, head of XR at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. said:

Our advanced heterogeneous compute platform, Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Platform, coupled with Nreal’s sleek form factor yet high-performance glass truly demonstrate that the future of XR is near.

We’ve seen the AR market have its fair share of AR glasses and headsets in recent years. However, most have been nothing more than a heads-up display. The FOV on Nreal’s headset is actually more than that of both the Magic Leap and HoloLens. (Although we can expect the second HoloLens to include a much-improved field of view.)

Nreal say:

We are dedicated to shaping the future world and changing human cognition. Nreal has gathered the best engineers in mixed reality from industry leaders. The team has achieved breakthroughs in spatial computation, optical display, interactive experience and mobile integration.

You can expect the device to go on sale in the third quarter of 2019 and cost $1000. Considerably cheaper than its main rivals.

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