Xiaomi has unveiled its first smart glasses, a wearable device that it says is designed to be more than a second screen for a smartphone. The company said the Xiaomi Smart Glasses weigh just 51 grams and integrate a total of 497 components including miniature sensors and communication modules, so they are able to display messages and notifications, make calls, navigate, capture photos and translate text right before the wearer’s eyes.
They are powered by a quad-core ARM processor, run on Android and use MicroLED imaging technology to lower the design space needed in structural design. Xiaomi said the display chip is roughly the size of a grain of rice (2.4mm x 2mm), with individual pixels sized at 4μm. To allow sufficient light to pass through optical structures before reaching the eye even in harsh direct sunlight, the company opted for a monochrome display solution, which is capable of reaching a peak brightness of 2 million nits.
The 5MP camera on the front of the glasses can take photos and translate text in photos via a proprietary translating algorithm, said Xiaomi, adding that the Smart Glasses can also pick up speech and transcribe it into text with translations in real time. Like Facebook’s recently-announced Ray-Ban Stories, the wearable device features an indicator light that illuminates when the camera is in use.
Additional features include a “Navigation” capability that displays maps in real time so that users can keep their eyes on the road, a built-in dual beamforming microphone and speaker plus a “Phone Call” feature that displays the number of callers.
Xiaomi's smart glasses are currently at the concept stage and the company has yet to announce a price or any definite plans to launch the device, which it described as "an engineer’s look into an advanced future."
