Ex-Magic Leap employee launches mixed reality glasses Nreal Light in bid to capture potential tech hotspot
- Nreal operates in an area where big technology names such as Magic Leap and Microsoft have been pumping in billions of dollars of investment
A portal ringed with fire had just opened up right in front of my eyes. Stepping through it, I was immediately transported to a 360-degree galaxy environment, where an astronaut floated past me, so close that I could walk around him to examine the details on his white and orange suit.
No, I wasn’t hallucinating, I was wearing a pair of “mixed reality glasses”, produced by Beijing-based start-up Nreal and unveiled ahead of the CES 2019 tech fair, which allow virtual environments or objects to be projected into a real environment for learning and leisure pursuits, such as gaming and videos.
The Nreal Light glasses impress because of the high-definition, 1080p resolution graphics and 52-degree field of vision – the area that a person can see while wearing the glasses. This is currently the widest field of vision available with such glasses, beating out rivals like Magic Leap and Microsoft’s Hololens.
The field of vision is so wide, I felt as though I had a projector screen right in front of me.
For Xu Chi, chief executive and founder of Beijing-based Nreal, these lightweight [85 grams] mixed reality glasses could be the next big hardware trend, especially once they achieve a form similar to the ordinary glasses that people wear every day.
“Ultimately we want to blend virtual content and virtual information with reality, and do it so well that people can hardly notice the difference,” said Xu Chi, who used to work for Florida-based Magic Leap. “The technology is there and it is ready, and what we want to do is build affordable mixed reality glasses that can give users a stunning experience in the very near future.”
