The AR industry is entering a period of rapid development? Meta brain-computer wristband device debuts, display technology unlocks performance potential

In 2024, the growth of the AR industry is significantly faster than that of VR devices, and shipments have also increased. The differences between the AR and VR industries reflect that consumers' preferences and demands for different types of devices are changing. Driven by new technologies and new products, AR devices have become a new growth curve for the entire market.

Among AR smart glasses brands, Meta has occupied a place in the AR smart glasses market with its technological innovation and product iteration. Among domestic AR brands, XREAL, Thunderbird Innovation, and Rokid rank in the top three in terms of shipments, and their new products are also the most popular among consumers. Recently, Meta and Thunderbird Innovation have brought heavy new products and brought innovations in technology and user experience.


Iteration of display screens: OLED Tandem architecture technology and SPR algorithm support

The AR/VR industry has been developing for many years, and many brand manufacturers in the industry have launched products, but it was not until the past two years that three types of products have truly entered the million-level club, namely, VR all-in-one machines represented by Meta, AI smart glasses without augmented reality technology, and split AR smart glasses represented by domestic companies.

A remark by Li Hongwei, founder and CEO of Thunderbird Innovation, has attracted the attention of the industry. He believes that "AR is going astray." This is because Thunderbird Innovation has noticed that many split-type AR glasses companies are constantly launching 3D applications, multi-tasking office, and even spatial photography functions, intending to build AR smart glasses into the next generation of computing platforms. However, according to Thunderbird Innovation's survey data, more than half of the surveyed users chose the movie-watching scene. In other words, the main application demand

for AR smart glasses at present is still entertainment. So, what should AR smart glasses for entertainment scenes be like? You know, the movie-watching scene not only has extremely high requirements for the display experience.

Recently, Thunderbird Innovation launched a new generation of AR smart glasses Air 3. In order to improve the picture quality, Thunderbird Innovation and TCL spent a year jointly developing the Peacock Optical Engine, and many aspects such as color, clarity and refresh rate have been upgraded. The optical engine consists of two key parts, one is the optical path system, which is responsible for transmitting light. The other part is the Micro-OLED screen, which is responsible for producing the picture.

In terms of screen, Air 3 is equipped with the fifth-generation Micro-OLED jointly released with Vision Technology, which achieves 145% sRGB color gamut coverage, 98% DCI P3 color gamut coverage, eye-catching brightness of 650nits, and contrast ratio of 200000:1. In the scene of watching movies, high color gamut coverage can allow users to experience a richer color experience.

The use of OLED Tandem architecture technology is one of the reasons for the upgrade of the display screen of Vision Technology's fifth-generation Micro-OLED display. OLED Tandem architecture technology has greatly improved the brightness and color accuracy through the efficient operation of the double-layer OLED white light-emitting layer, combined with more precise circuit control. It is expected that the fifth-generation Micro-OLED display screen will become a new benchmark for future AR display technology.

Previously, Xiaomi wireless AR glasses used a free-form light-guiding prism + Micro-OLED optical display solution, and the micro display screen used the 0.49-inch Micro-OLED provided by Vision Technology. Compared with previous products, the fifth-generation Micro-OLED also applied multiple technologies to improve color. According to the introduction, the product introduces a sub-pixel rendering algorithm (SPR), which realizes the edge of the game screen and text prompts without jagged edges and color edges. The

commonly used pixel arrangement method of LCD is Real RGB, which is also the traditional sub-pixel arrangement method. It divides square pixels into three sub-pixels of red, green and blue. Each sub-pixel is a light-emitting chip of a single color. However, on OLED, the patterning process of the pixel arrangement method of Real RGB is more difficult. Generally speaking, when the resolution exceeds 350PPI, sub-pixel rendering technology will be used to solve the problem by changing the sub-pixel arrangement structure and reducing the number of sub-pixels.

At present, the main sub-pixel rendering technologies in the industry include Samsung's Diamond arrangement, TCL Huaxing's Pearl arrangement, Tianma's Windmill arrangement, etc. The Diamond arrangement evolved from the RGBPenTile arrangement. In this method, a certain pixel point will "borrow" another color of the adjacent pixel point, thereby reducing the number of sub-pixels and achieving high resolution with low resolution.

It can be seen that since the arrangement of red, green and blue pixels directly affects the display effect of the screen, various panel manufacturers have developed different pixel arrangements to improve the display effect and performance of the screen.

Comparison of sub-pixel rendering algorithm effects (Source: Seeya Technology)

For entertainment scenes such as watching movies, the display experience is crucial. In order to improve the display effect of AR smart glasses, glasses manufacturers and display chip manufacturers work together to solve the problem. By improving the color management technology of the display, optimizing the optical design and display algorithm, the picture effect is further improved.


Brain-computer wristband devices appear, and AR human-computer interaction is upgraded again

. The AR smart glasses brought by Meta at the Connect 2024 conference aroused the amazement of the industry. Zuckerberg said, "We have been studying AR smart glasses for ten years, and this is still the direction we are working hard to achieve." Then Meta's first AR smart glasses, Orion AR glasses, were officially released. Orion consists of glasses, tracking wristbands, and computing hosts, and uses wireless connection. Orion AR glasses are equipped with a dedicated chip for AR smart glasses, equipped with 7 cameras and sensors, and have the functions of eye tracking and hand tracking. In terms of optical display solutions, micro LED + optical waveguide is used, with a FOV of 70°.

Orion AR glasses (Source: Meta)

What is most noteworthy is that the Orion AR glasses are equipped with a wristband device - a brain-computer interface wristband. This is a leap forward in the human-computer interaction of AR smart glasses. The previous interactions were generally voice interaction, eye tracking, gesture interaction, etc., and after wearing the brain-computer interface wristband device, you only need to send signals from the brain to the device.

According to the introduction at the press conference, the brain-computer interface wristband can sense the wrist muscles and is mainly used to track the movements of the user's fingers, including two-finger pinching, dragging, and clicking. Unlike the two-finger pinching function of the Apple smartwatch, the wristband device of the Orion AR glasses obviously has a stronger sensing ability and can sense different combinations of pinching actions between different fingers such as the thumb, index finger, and middle finger. For example, the thumb and index finger pinching can select content, and the middle finger thumb pinching can call or hide the application launcher.

According to the introduction, the wristband device is made of high-performance textile materials and uses electromyography (EMG) to identify neural signals related to gestures. The device can convert the sensed signal into an input signal within a few milliseconds and convey it to the computing subject.

Judging from these applications, they are similar to the previous AR brand manufacturers who chose to use smart rings to control smart glasses. But the difference is that the brain-computer interface wristband is a product that Meta has been talking about for several years, and it finally appeared officially this year.

It has to be said that Meta has accumulated a certain amount of research in the field of electromyography. Just in July this year, Meta announced that it would cooperate with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to develop a neural interface wristband, mainly to enable people with different motor abilities to complete daily tasks in digital and MR environments. Meta's electromyography research mainly places sensors on the wrist to sense the electrical signals of wrist muscles. Meta mentioned that the wrist-based electromyography input hardware prototype is sensitive enough to detect subtle neural motor signals. It is worth mentioning that Meta has proved in the experiment that the brain-computer wristband can sense the electrical signals of people with spinal cord injuries.

Meta's EMG wristband can be successfully applied to AR smart glasses. It is a new way of human-computer interaction and will expand the user population of its AR smart glasses. Zuckerberg said that this is not only the first full-screen, full-view AR smart glasses, but also the first device driven by Meta's wrist-based neural interface.

However, the Orion AR glasses released next are only developer kits. But Zuckerberg said that Orion may achieve much more than the team thought at the beginning, but before releasing Orion as a consumer product, the team still has some things to move forward, including continuing to adjust the display system to make it clearer, continuing to improve the design to make it smaller, and continuing to improve the manufacturing process to make it more affordable. "When we have the next version of this hardware, it will be ready to be our first consumer holographic AR glasses." Meta has clear goals and great hopes for its AR smart glasses and the construction of the entire product system.


Summary:

The enthusiasm of XR entrepreneurs will not be extinguished. AR smart glasses manufacturers and display chip manufacturers have jointly promoted the continuous improvement of AR smart glasses display effects through technological innovation and cooperation, display effect improvement and user experience improvement. As a leader in the field of AR smart glasses, Meta continues to empower products with stronger AI capabilities and enrich the human-computer interaction experience through the addition of more innovative accessories. In the future, with the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous expansion of the market, we can expect more outstanding AR smart glasses products to come out.