It is something that I say since the beginning of 2019: nReal is one of the most interesting AR startups out there. That’s why when I traveled to Beijing, I really did everything that I could to visit its HQ.
There, I have been able to discuss with people of the company about the status of the HMD and I also had a try-on session with the latest version of nReal glasses. Here you are my hands-on impressions on the device.
What is nReal?
If you still have no idea on what is nReal, I’ll make a short recap for you. nReal is a Chinese augmented reality company that is developing an augmented reality glass that is cheap, light and fashionable.
The idea of nReal is producing the first consumer AR headset, that, when you wear it, you really look like wearing a pair of normal glasses. Since the device must be cheap and light, it can’t contain any computational power or battery, that’s why it must be attached to a computational unit that you hold in your pocket. In current devkits, this computational unit is a mini-PC called the Oreo, while in the production phase, thanks to Qualcomm Snapdragon reference design, it will just be your phone.
nReal has been sued by Epic Games for the name too similar to Unreal and by Magic Leap that claims that nReal CEO Chi Xu has stolen the technology of the American company while working there. No one from Magic Leap or nReal is authorized to talk about this topic, so I won’t address it here.
Design
nReal glasses are designed to be the closest possible to regular sunglasses.
They present a design that is very light since all the processing power is in a separate computational unit. Of course, they appear a bit bigger than regular sunglasses, since they have to contain all the electronics and the lenses for the optics. This is especially noticeable in the front part of the device, the one containing the displays, that is far thicker than the corresponding part on a regular pair of glasses. The lenses themselves actually are transparent only for the lower half, since the top half is black and opaque because it has to contain the circuitry of the cameras and the other sensors, plus parts of the optics. Of course, there is also the cable that comes out from one of the temples that shows that this is an electronic device.
This means that at a first look, they look like sunglasses, but if someone comes closer, clearly realizes that they are something different.
nReal glasses look stylish and this is what I love of them. They are all black but feature a front part of the frames that exhibits very bright colors like blue or red that makes them very fashionable. The temples are connected to the front part through a hinge exactly as normal glasses and this means that you can actually fold them to carry them in the pocket with you (even if the cable may prevent you from actually doing this).
Comfort
nReal glasses are very light, but not as light as a pair of standard glasses, not even like the glasses associated with zSpace tablets. Anyway, it is a big step forward from HoloLens or Magic Leap One.
Regarding the comfort, current devkits (that do not represent the final form of the device), left me with mixed feelings. I mean, the headset is light and quite comfortable, but there are some regions of my head where I actually felt discomfort. For instance, the design of the temple tip was absolutely wrong for the shape of my head and my ear, so my ears had to stay folded most of the time. Also, my big Western nose wasn’t that happy wearing the glasses.
UPDATE: nReal clarified that in Beijing I have tried a device not fully configured for my comfort, so I deleted the above part because it can’t represent the actual feeling of the device. So, the only thing that I can tell about how it feels on the head of the user is that the device is actually light and quite comfortable. I will evaluate how it fits on my ears and on my nose when I will be able to try an actual devkit in few months from now.
The cable that comes out from the device can actually be a nuisance in some moments… and the fact that is attached to only one of the temple may cause the perception of asymmetric weight on your head, or even the perception of a wrong balance of the device. This is why Magic Leap actually attached two cables on both sides of the device: so that to give the Magic Leap One a more balanced fit.
nReal answered that they are aware of these issues and they are working on them for the actual release of the device.
Visuals
The visuals of the device are pretty cool. nReal features two 1080p displays and a diagonal Field Of View of 52 degrees… something that is far better than the original HoloLens for instance. The visuals are not offered through waveguides, but thanks to images that are rendered on a screen and then reflected onto the surface of the semi-transparent lenses, to give you the impressions of augmented reality. This mechanism is far easier and cheaper than the waveguides employed by HoloLens or Magic Leap, but it gets the job done anyway.
When trying the nReal glasses, I was surprised by the vivid colors and by the consistency of the augmentations. I mean, while looking to some holograms produced by HoloLens or Magic Leap, I have the impression that these elements are semi-transparent (especially with ML), but with nReal this is almost not true. Virtual objects appear more vivid, more realistic, more solid. I think that the high resolution contributes to this sensation as well.
If you shake your head fast while looking at objects, they become blurred, though.
The field of view is a mixed bag. The horizontal field of view is great, much wider than the original HoloLens. I never had the impression that something was cut out from the horizontal FOV, it was really impressive. The vertical FOV, instead, was pretty little. On the top, it is limited by the black opaque region of the lens, while on the bottom, the images abruptly get cut down at a certain point. And while on the top your brain accepts that the augmentations stop because there is the frame of the glass (something similar to what happens with ML), on the bottom part, you just see the virtual elements stopping far before the lower limit of the frames, at a random point. So, the horizontal FOV is great, but the vertical one presents all the problems that we already know from AR glasses. Someone from nReal told me that they wanted to give the glass the same wide horizontal form factor of current smartphone screens, but I don’t know if it has been a great idea.
The lenses are a bit opaque, like in all other augmented reality devices. So, when you wear nReal, you lose a bit the illumination of the world. This light dimming is not that extreme, though, and is very acceptable to me. Anyway, because of this and the vivid colors of the holograms, the virtual elements occlude completely all the real ones. For instance, if you put your real hand where there is a virtual element to touch it, you can’t see your hand anymore and this breaks a bit the magic.
Audio
Even if they are very little, nReal glasses feature integrated audio: there are little speakers embedded into the frame, close to the ears of the user.
I’m not a great expert in audio, but I have not come out impressed by the speakers: audio seemed always not clear enough, especially because the volume seemed always too low.
Tracking
nReal glasses feature 6 DOF tracking and this is impressive considering the low price of the headset. Most cheap AR headsets are just 3 DOF, while this can offer you the possibility of moving in your space and see the virtual elements reacting accordingly.
The tracking is solid in the sense that in my little tests, the headset never lost the tracking. I tried moving across the office, shaking my head fast and other things and the tracking always performed well.
The big problem is jitter: virtual elements appear fixed in a position in space, but actually, they are not perfectly stable. Especially while you move, you see them oscillating a lot.
Having studied computer vision and having tried developing a rudimentary AR engine myself, I can tell you that the stability of virtual elements is one of the most difficult things to accomplish. Microsoft has surely spent lots of money to make sure that HoloLens’s holograms look absolutely fixed in space. nReal is just a startup and it has a short story, so the fact it hasn’t been able to obtain the same results was quite predictable.
nReal tracking is not comparable to the one of HoloLens or Magic Leap because holograms do not appear stable, but they noticeably move while you move your head. This is another problem on which nReal is working hard.
Controller
nReal glasses work with a 3DOF circular controller. If the headset is connected to the phone, it is the phone that acts as a controller. You can use the phone to point at virtual objects, and then press the screen to interact with them. On the screen, you can currently tap and swipe to give different commands.
In some demos, I have been able to point at virtual objects, press the screen of the phone and then move them in space by just pointing the phone to where I wanted them to be.
Having the phone as the controller is a smart idea, since this removes the need of having another device with you to interact with the device. The real problems that I have found have been:
- The phone is usually quite big to be held in the hand, so it is not an ergonomic controller;
- Sometimes the phone loses the calibration with the device, so you have to re-set it manually (a bit like what happens with Oculus Go and its controller);
- A 3 DOF controller is nice, but it can’t give you presence like a 6 DOF one.
Sensors
On the front of the glasses, you can find the following sensors:
- 2 black-white visible-light cameras, used for tracking;
- 1 front RGB camera, that is open to developers;
- 1 environmental light sensor.
Connection
The only public information on the connectivity of the device regards the USB-C connector that has to be plugged into the computational unit.
The device relies completely on the computational unit for other types of connectivity (e.g. Wi-fi), because this way it can afford not including additional circuitry inside.
Applications
nReal is currently an internal devkit, so there are almost no developers working on creating applications for it.
I’ve been able to just try some short demos, like for instance:
- A virtual cinema: I was able to move a big quad showing a 3D movie wherever I wanted in the room. Pretty nice, even if the vertical FOV of the device sometimes prevented me from seeing well the movie;
- A little cat that followed a virtual laser pointer. Really cute, indeed;
- Some flying butterflies over a floating Minecraft-style world. This demo, thanks to the bright colors of the device was pretty impressive;
- A portal that showed some planets when looking through it;
- Some cute anime girls dancing at the rhythm of the music. I could move them in space and put them close to me, so that to have the impression they were dancing with me. It was also possible to make them fly and see their underpants (a friend told me).
It will be interesting to see what developers will be able to create for this device when it will be out in the wild.
Status of the project
The nReal devices I was able to try were still 3D printed very early production demo units, so the actual production phase has not begun yet. The SDK is still in the works, too. This means that some months are needed for this device to get in its final form.
That’s why nReal claims that first devkits will ship in the next months (expected date is September 2019), while the device for consumers will be only released in 2020.
Expected price
The Nreal Light Consumer Kit will start from $499, while the Developer Kit will be priced at $1,199.
You may wonder why the devkit is more expensive. Well, mostly it is because of the computational unit. The Consumer Kit just includes the glasses, while the Devkit also gives you the Oreo computational unit and 3DOF controller. This is necessary so that you can start developing for the nReal glasses even if you don’t have one of the compatible phones (that at the moment are really limited).
Final impressions
After my tests, I still continue thinking that nReal is one of the most interesting XR startups of 2019. For sure the device has some limitations, like the 3 DOF controller, the jittery tracking and the limited vertical FOV, but it shows how consumer AR should be: light, trendy and affordable. I think that a new startup couldn’t offer much more for $499. If they manage to fix some of its issues before the launch in 2020 (at least the jitter), this could be one of the glasses to buy next year (provided that Oculus or Apple don’t announce something better…). IMHO it is not ready for mainstream adoption, but it can be successful among tech enthusiasts.
If you are a developer, you may consider digging into it: I think that for some B2B applications, like marketing for luxury brands, this can be the device to go. nReal is looking for interested devs, so if you want to experiment with this device, contact them or contact me and I will introduce you to them.
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