Unveiling Oppo Air Glass 3: Next-Gen AR Glasses Debut at MWC 2024

At the MWC 2024 in Barcelona, Oppo showcased a prototype of AR glasses equipped with a voice assistant, highlighting the trend among electronics manufacturers to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their offerings for differentiation. At the MWC, Oppo, a prominent Chinese smartphone manufacturer, introduced the Oppo Air Glass 3.

The Oppo Air Glass 3 appears like standard eyeglasses. It reflects Oppo’s efforts to create a design suitable for daily wear, intended to complement smartphone usage. With AR glasses, wearers can overlay digital content onto their real-world view. This content might include notifications like messages or navigational aids such as maps. The Air Glass 3 requires a connection to an Oppo smartphone for operation. Users can interact with the glasses using touch sensors located on the side of the frame.

Oppo announced that its latest AR glasses feature a voice assistant powered by the company’s own LLM, AndesGPT. LLMs are AI models trained on extensive datasets and are the foundation of popular chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which have gained widespread usage in recent times. The voice assistant is currently limited to availability in China, as per Oppo’s press release. Oppo stated that the chatbot is capable of tasks such as conducting information searches and engaging in conversations to aid users in activities like travel planning.

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In the current landscape, electronics manufacturers are emphasizing the integration of AI features into their products, capitalizing on the widespread popularity and hype surrounding this technology. Oppo, among numerous other technology companies in China, has developed its large language model (LLM), joining the ranks of industry players such as Alibaba and Baidu in this endeavor.

VR and AR have been topics of discussion among electronics manufacturers for several years. Yet they haven’t experienced the explosive popularity that many had anticipated. Despite this, tech firms have pursued different strategies in this space. For instance, Apple recently launched the Vision Pro, a high-end AR headset priced at $3,500 that boasts advanced features. Meanwhile, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has focused on the virtual reality market with its Quest headsets.

Oppo stated in a press release that it views glasses as an ideal hardware platform for AI, given their inherent features such as visual and voice interactions, potentially making them excellent companions for smartphones across various scenarios. Weighing only 50 grams, the glasses represent a lightweight option. The glasses are currently in the prototype stage. It remains uncertain whether Oppo intends to bring them to the commercial market. Notably, Oppo’s previous iteration, the Air Glass 2, was not made available for public sale.