After a limited invite-only release of developer kits earlier in the year, Nreal is opening up pre-orders more widely for its Light Developer Kits.
The Nreal Light is a slim AR headset aimed toward consumers. They have a 1080p display and the company pitches its eyewear as being powered by your phone if you are running a Snapdragon 855 processor. If your phone doesn’t meet that requirement, it is supposed to also work with a separate computing unit.
The Nreal Light Developer Kits are listed at $1,199 USD with the set said to include the Nreal Light AR headset, a 3DoF controller and Nreal’s computing pack. While the glasses are extremely low weight at 85 grams the last demo we had of this technology platform didn’t inspire much confidence. The glasses were able to display a movie that looked decent but we can’t say there’s evidence the system is likely to have solved the hard problems of everyday use AR with 6 degrees of freedom tracking in a wide range of locations, nor have we seen a demonstration of intuitive input with this AR platform.
Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 offers an all-in-one AR system geared toward businesses for $3,500 while Magic Leap sells its AR glasses, which come with a wire to a compute pack like Nreal, for $2,300. While both are pricier than Nreal, the HoloLens and Magic Leap teams paid a lot of attention to the quality of their tracking and input. We can’t say we’ve seen the same from Nreal.
Developers who are interested in the Nreal platform can find more information here.
