Nreal’s $380 AR glasses want to be a virtual monitor for MacBooks

As augmented reality (AR) glasses continue to try to carve out a place among tech enthusiasts, we’re seeing another option become mainstream in the US. In addition to selling sunglasses-like Nreal Air specs in America, Beijing-based Nreal also announced today a version of its Nebula AR operating system that will work with Apple M1 and M2-based MacBooks.

The Mac version of Nebula works with Apple Silicon-based MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops and is launching as a beta. Attaching Air glasses to a MacBook won’t give you the same Nebula “AR Space”experience that is available on supported Android phones. AR Space includes a mixed reality interface, as well as games and other augmented reality applications built for glasses. Instead, Mac users will see a virtual user interface that Nreal calls AR Desktop that projects up to three virtual displays at once, an Nreal spokesperson told Ars Technica. An Nreal spokesperson did not specify when AR Space would be coming to MacBooks or iOS.

In a statement, Nreal co-founder Peng Jin said the company expects AR glasses to initially catch on with consumers as a display technology, so “the thinking behind Nreal Air is very focused on aesthetics, display quality, and its relationship with other hardware. devices.”

You can currently connect Nreal Air to a Windows PC or iPhone, but only for screen mirroring, simulating a 130-inch screen that is 13.1 feet away (compared to a 201-inch screen that is 19 feet away).. 7 feet in AR Space mode).

Nreal also announced the Nreal iPhone Adapter today, a bulky box that lets you plug in an HDMI-to-Lightning dongle so you can plug in your iPhone. You can also use the adapter to connect Nreal Air to Nintendo Switch to feel like you’re playing on a big screen.

However, even with the iPhone adapter, the functionality is limited to screen mirroring. However, it’s at least somewhat reassuring that Nreal is expanding support, even a little. While having to wear glasses attached to your phone already seems burdensome; adding a 2.42 x 1.79 x 0.88 brick to the mix, weighing 2.61 ounces, will only make matters worse.

Air’s most robust augmented reality experience remains reserved for supported Android devices. They’re the ones who will be able to take advantage of Nebula’s updates announced today, including a new “borderless curved wall design”, animated 3D icons and a content recommendation widget.

Nreal has updated the Nebula web browser, Spatial AR, to offer two display modes (horizontal or vertical). It also added several new “casual”AR games and features to Nebula, including Teleport, which allows users to “jump over 3D models of real-world structures scanned by their smartphones and leave photos, texts, and voice messages for other users”. — though we don’t expect many other users to be here.

I tried some of Nebula’s augmented reality features before the release of her first Nreal Light glasses. Even at this early stage, the graphics looked quite bright and crisp, but the navigation was far from intuitive, and the games weren’t detailed enough to warrant frequent play. Things may have improved by now, but even the best AR games and experiences are far from mainstream, especially when compared to console and PC gaming.

Nreal Air claims 3840×1080 resolution, 108 percent sRGB coverage, 100,000:1 contrast ratio, and 60Hz refresh rate on its Micro OLED displays. A scaled down version of the more expensive ($600) Light, the Air has a 46-degree field of view (FOV) compared to the Light’s 52 degrees and 3 degrees of freedom (DoF) compared to the Light’s 6 DoF. tracking.

We’ve yet to try Nreal’s Air, but reviews from sites like Tech Advisor and TechRadar point to higher image quality but clunky navigation and limited augmented reality functionality and phone compatibility. At the time of writing, the only apps supported by AR Space are Amazon, Cycling, Google, Message, PhotoGun, Pupup, QB Planets, Teleport, YouTube, Yahoo, Wikipedia. And Nreal says battery life is limited to 5 hours of video streaming.

Enthusiasts have few options for real consumer AR glasses, despite companies like Meta and Apple showing interest in them. One potentially strong competitor for the Air is the upcoming Lenovo Glasses T1. Unlike Air, functionality is expected to be the same across Android, PC, iOS, and macOS products (an adapter will be required for iPhone). The glasses have a resolution of 1920×1080 per eye, Micro OLED panels, a 60Hz refresh rate, and a 38-degree viewing angle. They are supposed to start coming out next year and the price is expected to stay below $500.

The MSRP for the Nreal Air is $379 and the adapter is $59.