China’s smartphone giant Oppo ratchets up AR push – TechCrunch
Tech companies around the world are still identifying the “next big thing” made possible by 5G connections. Some, such as Oppo, Bet it’ll be augmented reality.
The Chinese smartphone company showcased its advances in AR at an event attended by hundreds of reporters, analysts and partners in Shenzhen on Tuesday. Green flashlight, the color of his brand, shone when Vice President Liu Chang unveiled the Oppo AR Glass 2021, a lightweight headset that is slightly chunkier than regular glasses.
Still in the conceptual phase, the headset is equipped with fisheye cameras, tracks hands in milliseconds, and can supposedly simulate the experience of viewing a 90-inch screen from three meters away.
The concept product is the result of Oppo’s three-year plan unveiled last year to spend 50 billion yuan ($ 7.62 billion) on futuristic technologies including AR.
Smartphone manufacturers from Xiaomi to Huawei rely on AR when they develop headsets that can be connected to smartphones and use their computing power. For example, the Oppo AR Glass 2021 is designed to connect to the Oppo Find X2 Pro, which contains a Snapdragon 865 chipset.
It’s unclear when Oppo’s AR glasses will hit the market, but the company is actively building the ecosystem needed to mass-market them, from working with content providers such as video streaming site iQiyi to Launch of a developer initiative next year to make development tools widely available.
At the same time, Oppo showcased a concept phone with a “scrolling” OLED screen that could be an alternative to existing foldable phones. Oppo declined to disclose who the display maker is.
