Xiaomi AR Glasses Available, Almost
Xiaomi (1810.HK) opened potential customers to a crowdfunding source that will allow them to purchase the company’s Mijia AR glasses at a discount for a limited amount of time. The headset, which was announced on July 31 of this year, will be available for pre-order for ~$370, a discount of 7.3%, from the $400 suggested retail price. The device is a standalone system that is based on a single Sony (SNE) micro-OLED micro-display (pixel density of 3,281 PPI) that can generate 3,000 nits, although typically 1,800 nits and weighs ~100 g. (~3.53 oz.). It runs on an 8 core CPU with a Qualcomm (QCOM) chipset and has 3GB of memory and 32GB of storage capacity, with a 1020 mAh battery that is expected to last between 100 minutes and 3 hours and takes about a half hour to charge. There is a 50mp wide-angle camera and a 8mp periscope camera with native pass through.
According to what we have seen and read, this device is less an AR device and more a mobile camera, essentially a wearable camera and Xiaomi seems to be promoting it as such, with additional applications such as Chinese to English translation and one-click sharing and exporting of images to the Xiaomi smartphone app. The design of the glasses does not seem to be oriented toward the sleek design approach we would expect from Apple (AAPL) or Samsung (005930.KS), but more of a ‘proud to be a nerd’ approach that might not help to create a broad customer base. While one would expect Xiaomi to fund the development and production of such a device, the product is crowd-sourced and will begin production when it has raised sufficient capital to justify manufacturing (to be done by Seiko (6286.JP)), which is expected to be only available in China, at least for now. A bit on the disappointing side.
According to what we have seen and read, this device is less an AR device and more a mobile camera, essentially a wearable camera and Xiaomi seems to be promoting it as such, with additional applications such as Chinese to English translation and one-click sharing and exporting of images to the Xiaomi smartphone app. The design of the glasses does not seem to be oriented toward the sleek design approach we would expect from Apple (AAPL) or Samsung (005930.KS), but more of a ‘proud to be a nerd’ approach that might not help to create a broad customer base. While one would expect Xiaomi to fund the development and production of such a device, the product is crowd-sourced and will begin production when it has raised sufficient capital to justify manufacturing (to be done by Seiko (6286.JP)), which is expected to be only available in China, at least for now. A bit on the disappointing side.
Xiaomi Mijia AR Glasses - Source: Xiaomi
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