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.
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