Interface News Reporter | Xu Shiqi
Interface News Editor |
Not long after the release date of Apple's Vision Pro was announced, many headset manufacturers opened the book at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in advance.
Two leading AR manufacturers from China, XREAL and TCL's Thunderbird Innovation, have launched their latest products one after another, and have also taken the initiative to compete with Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.
Among them, XREAL's Air 2 Ultra provides 6 degrees of freedom (DOF, depth of field) position tracking, and a 3D camera (environmental sensor, not supporting shooting) on each side of the glasses can track hand movements.
It looks a lot like a pair of sunglasses and weighs 80g, which is not the weight of two pairs of ordinary glasses. It is priced at US$699 (about 5,000 yuan) and is expected to ship in March.
The new Thunderbird X2 Lite (overseas name: RayNeo X2 Lite) displayed by Thunderbird Innovation this time is a lightweight version of the X2 product released in October last year, using Qualcomm XR1 chip. This product is lighter than XREAL's new product, at 60g, and it also adds a large model voice assistant, Rayneo AI, which can directly control the glasses with words, so that it can help you make itineraries, do translations, shoot from a first-person perspective, and more.
ASUS, which was originally a computer-focused company, also released its own AR glasses product: AirVision M1. Compared with the current interactive AR glasses, this product only has basic display functions.
Due to some "name collision" with the Vision Pro equipped with the M2 chip, some netizens said: I wonder if Apple will file a lawsuit because of this name.
At this stage, the most important task of AR glasses manufacturers is to enrich the ecosystem and increase sales, which means not only to be able to work with mobile phones and PCs, but also to explore new use scenarios.
XREAL announced a number of collaborations at CES, such as jointly demonstrating AR-assisted driving methods with BMW and NIO, where users can see navigation instructions, entertainment content, reversing assistance and other information through AR glasses while driving, and also demonstrated the application of AR in live sports and holographic conference scenarios.
In terms of VR devices, Sony released a system product similar to the VR headset, including a 4K OLED microdisplay and XR head-mounted display, as well as a pair of handheld controllers. It's not for gamers, but for creators who need to create complex 3D content. The product will be available later in 2024.
Interestingly, a non-existent headset has been dubbed "the most talked-about virtual reality device at this CES" by the tech media, and it comes from the Netflix version of the TV series "The Three-Body Problem", in which the protagonist (Wang Miao in the original book) enters the world of the Three-Body Problem game with a silver mask made of metal that looks very lightweight. It's different from all the headsets on the market, but it's probably the most ideal.
There are also many products from the XR ecosystem at the show, such as Doublepoint, a Finnish start-up that released a gesture recognition technology that allows users to control AR with devices such as smartwatches. This solution is simpler and cheaper than adding expensive 3D sensors to the headset.
bHaptics, a VR haptic device company in South Korea, has released haptic gloves with 12 sensors distributed on the fingers and wrists, which can be wirelessly connected via Bluetooth for users to experience VR games and training.
The Japanese company Shiftall presented a product that is very suitable for the local market: the sound-isolating microphone mutalk 2. With it, people around you won't hear you when you're playing VR games or making phone calls on your phone. This is ideal for small living spaces and poor soundproofing in Japanese buildings.
However, it needs to be used with headphones (otherwise you won't be able to hear yourself), but when the two are worn together, it looks a little weird.
At this time, there is less than a month left before Apple launches the Vision Pro on February 2, and headset manufacturers urgently need to grab more attention before then, so as to prepare for the popularity of the Vision Pro next month.
For them, the wait for the headset to explode again is long enough, but whether they can do so depends on whether many people are willing to pay for the Vision Pro.