Nreal made quite the splash at CES earlier this year, showing off its Nreal Light AR headset which made some clear strides to look less like a futuristic helmet and more like a regular pair of sunglasses you might actually wear in public. Starting today, both the $1,200 Developer Kit and the $2,000 Enterprise Edition are officially available for pre-order.

The headset portion of Nreal Light is itself remarkably light, weighing in at only 88g, which is in part due to the fact that it has offloaded its computing to a dedicated Android mini-computer running a Snapdragon 845 chipset. Like HoloLens or Magic Leap One, it has 6DOF inside-out tracking, but also boasts a relatively wide 52-degree (diagonal) field of view, which is thanks to a ‘birdbath’ optical design which projects imagery from dual 1080p microdisplays; both HoloLens and Magic Leap One use waveguides for their near-eye displays.

There’s also going to be a $500 consumer version, which will arrive sometime in early 2020 without the so-called Computing Unit, instead tethering via USB-C to a user’s phone.

As for the dev kits available for pre-order today, the only material difference between both versions is the Enterprise Edition includes a one-year service plan. Nreal doesn’t really mention what that entails exactly, but if it’s anything like we’ve seen in the VR sector, it will likely provide dedicated customer support for businesses.

Nreal is also offering a Light Prescription Lens Set for $500 that contains 15 pairs of lenses with what the company calls a “wide range of diopters for nearsighted users.”

Shipping is said to begin in a month from now, delivering on a rolling basis depending on which batch you managed to nab.

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Lenovo Unveils New AR Headset Prototype Aimed at Business Travelers

Although we’ve had an opportunity to try Nreal Light quickly at trade shows, we haven’t had a chance to go deep enough for a full hands-on piece. If you’re looking for some great coverage of the AR headset, look no further than Tested’s video hands-on to learn more.

Check out the specs and box contents below:

Nreal Light Specs

  • Weight: 88g
  • Connectivity: USB-C compatible
  • Optics: Combined Lightguide / 52 degree diagonal field of view
  • Environmental Understanding：SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) / 6DOF tracking / Plane detection / Image tracking
  • Controller: 3DOF tracking, touchpad, haptic feedback
  • Computing Unit Weight: 170g
  • Hardware Platform:  Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
  • Operating System:  Android

What’s in the box?

  • Nreal Light Glasses
  • Nreal Light Computing Unit
  • Nreal Light Controller
  • Corrective Lens Frames (1)
  • The Clip (1)
  • Nose Pads (3)
  • USB-C Cable
  • Charger
  • Nreal Light Glasses Cleaning Cloth
  • User Guide
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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • aasdfa

    oh you mean the guy who worked for magic leap, stole the hardware and brought it back to china? Yeah no thanks, how many backdoors is this device going to have?

    • asdf

      why the downvote, this happened. downvoting wont change that

      • dk

        he didn’t steal anything ….there is absolutely nothing in the glasses that hasn’t been on the market for the past 10 years it’s using super simple bird bath optics and 2 cameras for 6dof tracking in a nice small package and u can plug it in a phone or a pc or their sd845 computing unit

        lenovo https://www.roadtovr.com/lenovo-ar-headset-prototype/ and other companies r making the same sort of glasses ….these optics r not scalable as far as fov and variable focus and opacity and keeping the same or smaller size in future models ….but it’s an excellent package as far as practical affordable good enough first gen ar headset for a general consumer even though it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the ML1 or H2

        • Immersive Computing

          The 2 focal lengths was really strange on Magic Leap, it was very obvious as it adjusted between the 2. Still really enjoyed using Magic Leap (and Hololens).

          Each of these early AR systems show the huge potential, I am patient, I waited 25 years for consumer VR…I don’t expect “heavy glasses” consumer AR until 2030’s.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be013a73e65a4587bc49012c3732279a395e63c30a27d970f0279a8b4431e368.jpg

          • dk

            hmm apple will be releasing something in 2022-24 ….facebook might release or at leas show something in 2020 ….in any case descent enough first gen consumer headsets similar to nreal will be available in 2020 ….but if u mean it will be really popular in 2030 or close to that sure

    • 144Hz

      Yes, he’s the guy that created a BETTER product for 1/5 the price of Magic Leap. I’ll take two.

      • nreal light is not a better product. it’s a less capable product that is cheaper.

      • aasdfa

        by stealing others work and money. Literally billions of american dollars went into the R&D and investment of the magic leap and he just yoinked that and left. So now some chines company(Chinese government) is going to make that billions back without having to invest anything while an american company looses billions.

        • ESJ

          Good artists copy, great artists steal.

  • Ted Joseph

    I like the competition. This will push Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google to get moving on AR!

  • Joe Pineapples

    And so it begins, consumer AR….Let’s see now where this takes us.

    • Ardra Diva

      so far it’s been treasure-hunt stuff like Pokemon Go.

      • Blanca

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  • sebrk

    Just remember that this Poh-licking asswipe stole the IP from Magic Leap. Free HK!

    • timtime

      Thank you!! Free HK!!

  • Jimmy Ray

    It’s getting there. Mass buy when FOV is at least 100. I usually support as it grows but my money is invested in VR right now.

  • Devon Copley

    TrackIng was quite poor on the version I tried earlier this year…I hope they’ve improved it.

  • Allen H Rasafar

    VR hardware is transforming but not as fast as the Games and MR software landscape. There are a lot of good design Ideas for hardware but companies like magic leap and others are not adopting it due to lack of technology roadmap for up to date HMI and glasses.

  • Allen H Rasafar

    It is quite disappointing to sell such bulky outdated hardware to the amazing enthusiastic
    people. The Marketing opportunities demand a better piece of hardware. Challenge me so that I can prove it.

  • Mike Porter

    how much will the consumer version cost? 1200 USD dev kit is pretty expensive for a cheap consumer device

  • Octo

    Something like this needs hand tracking so you can navigate with the phone in your pocket.