- Oppo unveiled Oppo Air Glass 3, a prototype set of augmented reality (AR) glasses with a voice assistant, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
- Oppo said its latest AR glasses are equipped with a voice assistant powered by the Chinese tech giant’s proprietary large-scale language model (LLM) called AndesGPT.
- Air Glass 3 must be tethered to an Oppo smartphone. Users can control the glasses with a touch sensor on the side of the frame.
BARCELONA – Oppo on Monday unveiled a prototype set of augmented reality (AR) glasses with a voice assistant, highlighting how the electronics giant is introducing artificial intelligence to make its products stand out.
Oppo, a Chinese company and one of the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers, announced the Oppo Air Glass 3 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
They may look like regular glasses, but Oppo is looking for a design that can be worn every day as a companion to your smartphone. Since they are AR glasses, users can see digital content overlaid on top of the real-world scenery in front of them. This could be information such as messages or maps for navigation.
Air Glass 3 must be tethered to an Oppo smartphone. Users can control the glasses with a touch sensor on the side of the frame.
Oppo said its latest AR glasses are equipped with a voice assistant powered by the Chinese tech giant’s proprietary large-scale language model (LLM) called AndesGPT. LLM is an AI model trained on vast amounts of data that powers many of the chatbots that have exploded in popularity over the past year and a half, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Oppo said in a press release that the voice assistant is currently only available in China. Chatbots can “perform information searches and engage in conversations to assist users with tasks such as planning a trip,” Oppo said.
This year, electronics manufacturers are talking about how their products are equipped with AI capabilities, with the technology exploding in popularity and hype. Oppo is one of many Chinese technology companies developing their own LLMs, along with the likes of Alibaba and Baidu.
Meanwhile, other smartphone makers outside China are relying on their AI models to bring new experiences to their devices and stand out in a crowded field of similar devices.
Virtual reality and augmented reality have been talked about by electronics manufacturers for several years, but they haven’t exploded in popularity as many thought. Tech companies are taking different approaches. Earlier this year, Apple launched the $3,500 Vision Pro, a large but highly advanced AR headset. Meta through its Quest headset is also chasing the virtual reality market.
However, there are many companies that believe that lightweight glasses that people can wear every day in a fashionable way are the future. His Alibaba-backed Chinese AR company Xreal is one such company, along with Oppo, which has been investing in augmented reality for several years.
Oppo believes in a press release that glasses “are a suitable hardware carrier for AI due to their properties such as visual and audio interactions, and will ultimately become the best companion for smartphones in more scenarios.” said. The glasses weigh only 50 grams.
The glasses are just a prototype, so it’s unclear if Oppo plans to commercialize them. Oppo’s previous Air Glass 2 was not available for general sale.
But Oppo is trying to show off its technological capabilities in a market that has the potential to grow in the future. Market research firm IDC had predicted that shipments of AR headsets would be just 500,000 units in 2023, but believes this could rise to 6.8 million units by 2027.