The Lenovo’s new Glasses T1 put a Full HD OLED screen in front of each of your eyes and was revealed today during IFA and on Lenovo’s virtual showcase.
Lenovo is the latest company to promote a USB-C monitor made for your face. So plug them into your smartphone or computer and disconnect them even further from the world.
As Lenovo puts it, this wearable private display is like other consumer intelligent glasses, including TCL’s NxtWear Air, which puts two 1080p micro-OLED screens in front of your eyes, just like Lenovo’s T1. Another similar product is the Nreal Air, though that one has a 90Hz screen refresh rate compared to the T1’s 60Hz.
You aren’t getting any VR or AR experiences with these types of glasses, and you can’t safely walk around wearing them as your vision would be entirely obscured, and the cable keeps them tethered to whatever your source is. So instead, it’s designed to stay as if you were watching an actual TV or monitor, but the effect makes it feel like a giant theater screen. So you can watch movies, play games, and do your confidential digital paperwork while looking like Marvel’s Daredevil — without his hyper-awareness.
Lenovo is betting that mobile gamers will want these glasses, too, citing a Global Industry Analysts report that predicts a $160 billion global market for that industry by 2026. Similarly, it’s expecting the eclipsing video streaming market to mean more people might want to watch shows inside their T1 bubbles.
The Glasses T1 uses a physical wire to connect to devices like PCs, tablets, smartphones, Macs, and other devices that can output video through USB-C. Unfortunately, suppose you’d like to use the glasses with iOS devices like your iPhone. In that case, you’ll have to buy Lenovo’s HDMI adapter and Apple’s Digital AV adapter — all because Apple still hasn’t moved on from its 10-year-old Lightning port. The T1 glasses also work with Motorola’s secondary “Ready For” interface that lets you use apps in a desktop style.
Additionally, the glasses come with multiple nose pads that’ll be helpful for extended use and a prescription frame if you need it. The T1 glasses are battery-powered but can pull power from capable devices. They also have built-in speakers if you want only the video to be ultra-private.
Like many other display glasses, the Lenovo Glasses T1 will first be released to the Chinese market. They’re called the Lenovo Yoga glasses in China and will come by the end of the year. After that, the company plans to release them in “select markets” in 2023. No pricing has been removed.
Smart glasses are nothing unique, but they are still too costly or impractical for most people. However, Lenovo’s new glasses might be distinct… whenever they become available.
The Lenovo Glasses T1, announced today, aims to be a “wearable private display for on-the-go content consumption.” Unlike Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens, and other augmented-reality headsets, the T1 is just an external display for different devices — it’s not a standalone computer. The glasses aren’t wireless, which means there’s no battery to keep charged, but there is a cable that drives from the back of the glasses.
Lenovo says the glasses should work with anything that supports video output over USB Type-C. That includes many of the best laptops, the iPad Air and Pro, and some Android phones and tablets. There will also be an optional adapter for iPhones and iPads with a Lightning connector.
The glasses have a micro-OLED display, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 for each eye and a framerate of 60Hz. That refresh rate would be too slow for virtual reality games, but the T1 is strictly for productivity work and regular gaming — think of it as an external display, but straight in front of your eyesight instead of on a desk or wall.
Lenovo has already sold smart glasses to businesses for corporate use, but the T1 appears to be the company’s first glasses for regular buyers. Unfortunately, there’s no exact pricing or availability information yet.
Apple doesn’t have an AR headset yet, but Lenovo just announced a pair of display glasses that will work with iPhones via a Lightning adapter. The Lenovo Glasses T1, one of a handful of computer products announced Thursday by Lenovo at Berlin’s IFA tech show, aren’t AR-enabled. But they could be a second display for your computer or phone.
Wired display-enabled glasses that work as head-worn monitors have existed for years, notably TCL’s NXTWear G glasses. In addition, Lenovo has made several VR and AR devices over the last decade, including last year’s ThinkReality A3, a lightweight pair of AR glasses using Qualcomm’s technology.
The Glasses T1 are USB-C connected and should work with a wide range of Windows, Mac, and Android devices. The exciting part is the Lightning adapter, which also should make them work with iPhones.
The glasses have high-contrast Micro-OLED displays with 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution per eye and built-in speakers and have TUV Low Blue Light certification. Much like Lenovo’s ThinkReality glasses, there’s a set of adjustable nose bridges and options for custom prescription lens inserts.
The glasses have no listed price yet, but they’ll go on sale in China later this year and be available in other regions sometime in 2023. So apple may finally be readying its AR headset at last.