An MR dream for the next billion

Will Jio Glass make it a reality?

In its first-ever virtual annual general meeting(AGM)of Reliance Industries Limited, it announced “Jio Glasses.” With its launch of Jio back in 2007 Reliance has been trying to be the leader of data and content market in India with the launch of Jio Fiber, Jio TV, Jio Meet, Jio Chat, etc and also with acquisitions or investment in companies like Balaji Telefilms (TV content), EdCast (learning enabler), Embibe (edtech content), Saavn (music content), Radsys (5G architecture), Eros (TV content), Hathway (broadband), DEN (cable), Haptik (customer engagement), Reverie (language processing), Fynd (online shopping), Tesseract (AR/VR) and Grab (logistics).

One of the interesting ones was Tesseract; Reliance acquired a 92.7% of the stake and later announced it’s mixed-reality platform Holoboard in 2019, which consists of an AR headset which lets you to slide a supported smartphone inside the holder of the headset, to view augmented simulations. It used a Bluetooth remote controller with programmable buttons. It is yet to hit the market for the masses.

Holoboard

With that a year later, now it has announced Jio Glasses. A compact version of the MR headset, which is 50 grams lesser than the previous one, with the form factor of a sunglass. With the new glasses, you attach the phone to the headset with a cable. No more sliding your phone, which also opens the possibility of using the phone as a controller.

Few points from the launch are,

High-resolution display
Spatial Audio
25 Pre-build apps
Support for 3D avatars

It is said to focus on remote collaboration, remote teaching tools, etc. focusing on the current COVID situation. There is no detail about the release date, pricing, or specifications like FoV, resolution, battery consumption, etc., which are the critical factors in an immersive experience. With other competitors like Nreal with the pre-orders open, it is not sure that Jio Glasses will be the answer for the MR for the next billions, but its a massive start for the Indian XR(Extended Reality) dream.

What is an Extended reality?The Future of Human-Computer Interactionsiddarth.design