News: China-Based Startup 0glasses Looks to Challenge Nreal Light with Its RealX Augmented Reality Smartglasses

Brace yourselves: Nreal Light clones are coming.

Since the China-based startup wowed the crowd at CES 2019 with its consumer-centric smartglasses, a number of followers from Asia have emerged, and all with very similar aesthetics to Nreal Light.

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The latest example comes from Shenzen-based company 0glasses in the form of RealX, which made its public debut on Tuesday at CES 2020. Weighing just 70 grams, RealX follows the stylish sunglasses pattern outlined by Nreal Light, with color options of black, turquoise, and salmon.

RealX boasts a 1080p display with 50 degrees field of view for viewing streaming video, playing games, or interacting with productivity apps. Also, like the legions of consumer-grade smartglasses from China, RealX tethers to a proprietary computer pack, an Android device, or Windows-based computing device, namely smartphones and laptops, via USB-C port, which helps keep the wearable's weight down.

"The company's vision is to enable everyone to see the world differently and see different worlds, that is why 0glasses has always strived for innovation and developed RealX, entering the consumer market and bringing the XR technology into everyday life," said Bob Su, the CEO of 0glasses, in a statement.

In terms of AR computing, RealX promises simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), six degrees of freedom (6DoF) tracking, place detection, and image tracking among its environmental understanding capabilities, and supports voice recognition, hand gestures, and multi-touch (via smartphone or the computing unit) for user input. The company notes that the integration of an eye tracking module is also a possibility. For app development, RealX will also support third-party SDKs.

The company also brings several optical and fitting options to the table, including three magnetic lens shades, ranging from transparent to dark, to enable indoor and outdoor use, as well as varying nose pad replacements, and a prescription lens insert.

RealX isn't just a concept, either. The company claims to have entered partnerships with China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom and plans to deliver "a few thousand pairs" of the device in the first quarter of 2020. Concurrently, the company is working with channel partners to expand its product into additional regions.

The RealX device falls in line behind Action Air from Shadow Technologies, Glow from Mad Gaze, and AR Glass from smartphone maker Vivo among the Chinese competitors to Nreal Light.

So far, Nreal Light has remained the more compelling option among Chinese smartglasses, with the developer edition available for order and the consumer edition arriving in early 2020. But that could change if 0glasses is able to deliver RealX to consumers on the same timeline.