As part of the Inno Day 2022 announcements, the smartphone brand Oppo has unveiled 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 launching it at the beginning of 2022), Oppo already has plans to release a new and improved version of the specs. The most obvious change is that the original monocle design has been made into a full-frame pair of glasses, but Oppo promises the improvements are more than skin deep.
For a start, the Air Glass 2 can be equipped with vision-correcting lenses — allowing it to function not just as a smart device but as a regular pair of specs as well. The glasses are also very lightweight at just 38g, so you don’t have to feel too cumbersome wearing them on your face all day.
As for its 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, Oppo Air Glass 2 keeps the original wireless design; Unlike the Nreal Air and VITURE One glasses, you don’t need a cable to pair these specs with an OPPO smartwatch or smartphone.
As impressive as these glasses look, we hope they don’t suffer from the same issues as their predecessor.
While trying the original Air Glass, Adi Robertson of The Verge found the experience quite uncomfortable. The most likely reasons for this irritation are a low screen refresh rate — just as in VR, noticeable screen flicker at close range can be annoying — and that a single lens forces both eyes of the wearer to focus at different distances at the same time.
Oppo has reportedly improved the Air Glass 2’s lenses and its Micro-LED displays, and with the move to a dual-lens setup, these new specs should have a design that mitigate both of those issues. However, we’ll need to give it a try to be sure.
Our other concern is that the wireless, lightweight, feature-packed design will result in a battery life that’s too short for this smart spec. We’ve seen how smart glasses eat up the charge of the smartphones they’re connected to, so if your Air Link 2 specs don’t pack a large enough battery, you might not be able to use them for extended periods of time.
That is, if you can actually get it. At the moment, there is no information on the release date, price, or even if the Oppo Air Glass 2 will be available in regions outside of China and Asia. Since the original Oppo Air Glass wasn’t released globally, we don’t recommend holding your breath when it launches in the US, UK, or Australia.
However, with augmented reality glasses becoming more and more popular, we wouldn’t be too surprised if Oppo decided to use Air Glass 2 to enter this emerging market globally in 2023.
Are you interested in picking up an OPPO smartphone? Check out our best Oppo phones guide to see which of its phones is better than the rest.