CIOInsider India Magazine

Forget about picking up the smartphone when making or attending calls, and other notifications, or even as small and as conveniently wearable as smartwatches for the same. Since most of those tasks will happen right before the eyes with the new Xiaomi Smart Glasses. These glasses will show notifications, messages, translations, allow the clicking of photos, navigation and more. For a while it did seem that smart watches were only oriented to specific working purposes for certain companies such as Google for instance. Gone are those days, for the common man will get a taste of witnessing the functionalities of the smartphone or smartwatch right before their very eyes. Yes it is those eyes that scavenge through the furniture and objects when the phone is misplaced or those hands that tirelessly reach into places and pockets to get them just to view notifications. That’s exactly why Xiaomi brings the convenience of accessing those notifications through its smart glasses with barely any hands required.

This questions the lifespan or how long these smart glasses last, since not many companies are into designing these glasses and the very few are known to not last much longer. With full awareness of those setbacks, Xiaomic has incorporated MicroLED optical waveguide technology, which is known to not only have a longer lifespan, but higher brightness as well. With that said the following are the specifications of the smart glasses.

Specs of the Specs
Xiaomi Smart Glasses are 51 grams in weight, and while they appear to be conventional glasses, the firm has induced the MicroLED optical waveguide imaging technology to place the display in front of the user's eyes. MicroLED pixels, like OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes), are individually lighted, allowing for brighter displays and deeper blacks, as well as a higher pixel density and longer lifespan with a simpler construction. This also allows for a smaller display, which is essential for smart glasses.

Another part is that the MicroLED display can carefully transfer light beams to the human eye thanks to optical waveguide technology that refracts light at 180 degrees.

As for the camera, a 5MP front-facing camera for taking images and translating text within photos has been incorporated. Placed right beside the camera is an indication light that illuminates when the camera is in operation, indicating that photos are being shot. However, it should be noted that these glasses do not make use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology.

Then there’s a display chip that measures 2.4mm x 2.02mm and is roughly the size of a grain of rice when viewed through a microscope.

A quad-core ARM CPU, battery, touchpad, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modules, and Android operating system are among the features of the glasses.

The Smart Glasses include a total of 497 components, including small sensors and communication modules, and can be more than just a second screen for the smartphone. It can also independently complete functions such as navigation, taking photos, teleprompter, and real-time text and photo translations, the company claims. However, the glasses are designed to minimize interruptions at inconvenient times and display important information timely when critical.

To make phone calls, the glasses have a built-in dual beamforming microphone and speaker. In addition, the glasses can display real-time maps and roadways to users.

Lastly, the company has added its very own XiaoAi AI Assistant as the primary mode of interaction that users can use for interactions. These glasses will not display all the phone's notifications in front of the eyes. Instead, to avoid disturbing customers, they will only send the most necessary communications, such as smart home alarms, urgent information from business apps, and messages from important contacts, etc.

Fashion and Innovation Must Go Hand-in-Hand
Apple, Alphabet's Google, and Microsoft have all raced to produce a pair of physically and technologically impressive glasses that will take an instant liking to the customer.

As Tuong Nguyen, a principal analyst at technology consultancy firm Gartner puts it, technology companies are coming closer with the launch of Facebook smart glasses this summer, but significant consumer interest is five to ten years away. Some tech CEOs are also on the same page with Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel commenting that smart glasses would not be widely used for at least 10 years.

Then there’s the lag in mass market adoption of smart glasses due to slow progress on easy-to-use designs, fashionable appearances, and easy-to-use information, according to Nguyen. Many goods are still big, making them difficult to market to consumers who want to keep trendy on the go, while poor connectivity concerns deter those who want to save time. Companies have yet to iron out the bugs in the powering system, such as whether it will be tied to a computer or run on batteries.

However, the times are changing now as most recent models of smart glasses like Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 smart glasses, for one, can connect to a computer and some Motorola smartphones. This allows users to project multiple virtual screens at once with these smart glasses, which also have a speaker and microphone for engaging with classmates or colleagues.

Then came Microsoft which attempted to put these smart glasses to the defence sector and in 2019, the company won a $479 million contract to deploy 100,000 prototypes to the U.S. military hoping to improve soldier effectiveness. But this move was later bashed under harsh criticisms of employees. This led to a lot of questions pertaining to the employees’ own technology's applications, thus the decision has raised some alarm. However, in an interview with CNN Business, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella justified the move, saying that the business would not “withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to preserve the liberties we enjoy”.

Later, Snap debuted with its pair of smart glasses that allowed users to shoot movies and sync them with their phones back in 2016. However, by 2017, multiple media publications reported that Snapchat's inventor had vastly overestimated demand, with less than half of buyers continuing to use the app after a month.

The smart glasses product niche also has a variety of everyday benefits that continue to grow as it develops. According to Rick Kowalski, director of market analysis and business intelligence at the Consumer Technology Association, smart glasses may be used for virtual shopping, determining how furniture fits into houses, and could one day completely replace screens.