As part of the announcement of Inno Day 2022, the smartphone brand Oppo presented the second generation of its smart glasses: Air Glass 2.
Despite only announcing the first-generation Air Glass device a year ago at Inno Day 2021 (and releasing it in early 2022), Oppo is already planning to release a new and improved version of the specs. The most obvious change is that the original monocle has been transformed into a pair of full-frame glasses, but Oppo promises that the improvements are more than a superficial change.
For starters, the Air Glass 2 glasses can be equipped with vision-correcting lenses – so they can work not only as a smart device, but also as a pair of regular glasses. The glasses are also very light at only 38g, so wearing them on your face all day shouldn’t make you feel tired.
In terms of their functionality, newly added microphones and speakers allow the device to play music, make phone calls, translate foreign languages and provide real-time voice-to-text transcription. Best of all, the Oppo Air Glass 2 retains the wireless design of the original; Unlike the Nreal Air and VITURE One glasses, you don’t need a cable to pair these specs with your Oppo smartwatch or smartphone.
While these glasses sound impressive, we hope they don’t suffer from the same problems as their predecessors.
While trying the original Air Glass, Adi Robertson of The Verge (opens in a new tab) he found the experience quite uncomfortable. The most likely reasons for this irritation are the low refresh rate of the device’s screen – as in VR, the noticeable flickering of the screen at close range can be nauseating – and that a single lens forces each user’s eyes to focus on different distances at the same time.
Oppo has reportedly improved its Air Glass 2 lenses and Micro-LED projectors, and with the move to a dual-lens setup, these new specs should have a design that mitigates both of these issues. However, we have to try them to be sure.
Our second concern is that the wireless and feature-rich yet lightweight design will result in these smart specs having a very short battery life. We’ve seen the smart glasses drain the charge of the smartphones they’re connected to, so if the Air Link 2 specs don’t include a large enough battery, you may not be able to use them for extended periods of time.
That is, if you can actually get them. At the moment there is no word on the release date, price or even whether the Oppo Air Glass 2 will be available in regions outside of China and Asia. Given that the original Oppo Air Glass hasn’t been released globally, we don’t recommend holding your breath ahead of the US, UK, or Australian launch.
That said, with AR glasses becoming increasingly popular, we wouldn’t be too surprised if Oppo decided to use the Air Glass 2 to break into this emerging market globally in 2023.
Want to pick up your Oppo smartphone? Check out our ultimate Oppo phone guide to see which one of its phones is better than the others.