TCL Steps Up AR Smart Glass Rivalry with NXTWear

At CES 2022, TCL announced a fresh lineup of AR smartglasses to compete with Meta and Nreal

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TCL NXTWear Air to Bring Competition to Meta, Ray-Ban
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Published: January 7, 2022

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Rory Greener

At this year’s CES 2022 event, Chinese electronics company TCL announced the launch of its NXTWear Air augmented reality (AR) smart glasses, the firms most recent product in its lineup of solutions for entertainment and media streaming.

To date, TCL has not confirmed pricing or release dates for the NXTWear Air, although the Chinese firm plans to confirm details closer to February’s Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona.

TCL’s latest AR solution comes with many upgrades to the firm’s previous model, which it released in 2021 and may be re-released as a lighter-weight model.

The Huizhou-based tech company designed its most recent AR wearable as an external monitor to enable users to stream media in the privacy of an AR environment.

To achieve this, users must connect their NXTWear Air device to a smartphone or personal computing device to display virtual screens for streaming media content in the smart glasses Field of View (FoV).

Additionally, remote workers can take advantage of the NXTWear Air device by creating a virtual monitor to assist with tasks, eliminating expensive second computer screens and additional stands.

Fierce AR competition

The upcoming hardware rivals similar devices such as the Nreal Air that debuted late last October, which assists with streaming tasks by enabling users to enjoy media on a virtual external monitor.

On top of this, extended reality (XR) leaders Meta partnered with Ray-Ban last year to create a unique pair of Ray-Ban Stories, a set of smart glasses where users can record surroundings, take calls, and enjoy basic AR content.

Meta is also planning to make a big impact on the XR industry with its upcoming Project Cambria and Nazare headsets, and is pushing its App Lab digital storefront to allow developers to distribute AR and mixed reality (MR) content.

At CES 2022, global technology firms such as Panasonic and Vuzix have also announced plans to increase their presence in the AR hardware market.

Need to Know Specifications

To rival its competition, TCL has debuted the NXTWear Air with powerful specs to support high-fidelity streaming experiences.

The NXTWear Air weighs only 2.6 ounces, but the lightweight device can create virtual screens equivalent to a 140-inch monitor. To support this, the smartglasses have two 1080p displays per eye, each with a 60Hz refresh rate.

Adding to TCL’s impressive work on the NXTWear Air, the firm aims to release a pair of XR smart glasses to support AR and VR experiences, although the company has not released information on the XR device as it is currently being prototyped.

 

 

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