TCL Electronics' Thunderbird innovatively released AR glasses, which can take pictures and control smart home products in real time

Reporter | Xu Shiqi

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The AR glasses industry is buzzing again. Following the recent release of new products by Facebook and Xiaomi, a domestic manufacturer has also launched a new product.

On October 15, TCL Electronics Incubation's Thunderbird Innovation released an AR glasses: Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Edition. According to reports, this AR glasses mainly achieves innovation in display effect, power consumption and weight.

The optical display system of AR glasses is composed of optical components and miniature displays, and the current technical difficulty is that the display brightness is good and the light and thin long battery life are difficult to take into account. At present, the AR glasses products on the market are either more bulky or can only achieve monocular monochrome.

According to reports, Thunderbird Innovation uses a diffractive optical waveguide of holographic grating with MicroLED technology to achieve the effect of light weight, full color of both eyes and low energy consumption. In terms of optical waveguide technology, the industry mainly uses multi-layer waveguide technology, Thunderbird innovates the self-developed single-layer waveguide architecture, through self-developed light-wave coupling analysis and optimization algorithm, in terms of efficiency, dispersion, mass production to achieve a balance, which can reduce the weight of AR glasses; and MicroLED compared to other display technologies, with a wide color gamut and high brightness characteristics.

In terms of functions and scenarios, Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Edition can currently realize information prompting, photo sharing, photo translation, and intelligent connection control (which can control smart home products). The company said that in the future, it will continue to launch functions such as multi-screen display, real-life navigation, real-life translation, and car mirror linkage.

Thunderbird Innovation, incubated by TCL and Thunderbird Technology, has previously launched an XR glasses NXTWAER G and sold in South Korea, Japan, Australia, the United States and other countries.

Google released the world's first AR glasses in 2012, and in the years since, VR/AR glasses have set off a wave of enthusiasm. However, due to problems such as bulky products and limited functions, such intelligent hardware has been silent for several years. However, the research of technology companies on such products has not stopped, with technological progress, recently many companies have released new PRODUCTs of AR glasses: domestic manufacturer Nreal announced the second AR glasses Nreal Air, Xiaomi released a single-eyed waveguide AR smart glasses, Facebook, Google, Apple, HTC, Lenovo and other companies AR-related patented technology has also been continuously exposed.

According to a report released by market research firm IDC in July, global shipments of AR/VR devices increased by 45% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021, and predicted that AR and VR headsets will increase by 45.6% and 28.9% year-on-year this year. The agency released a forecast at the beginning of the year that China will continue to become the largest country in the global expenditure scale of AR/VR in 2021, accounting for 56% of the world, and at the same time, the signs of recovery in AR/VR investment and financing after the epidemic are obvious, and the AR field will be more attractive than VR in 2021.