Tech startup debuts immersive glasses intended for everyday use | Business
A Mountain View-based tech company is preparing to ship its first mixed-reality glasses, which blend the user’s physical environment with digital screens to provide a private viewing experience.
Unseen Reality, launched in the spring, plans to ship its initial product, URXR One, to retailers in September.
The glasses connect via Bluetooth or USB-C cord to a compatible device such as a laptop (Windows or Mac), phone, tablet, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 or Xbox, according to the company’s website. The glasses extend and mirror the display of the chosen device.
Assisted by the product’s spatial recognition technology, users may view their screens in diverse environments, such as coffee shops and parks. Unseen Reality’s website states that the glasses elevate gaming, entertainment and work-related experiences.
“I think it’s a very good productivity tool. You take it with you, and it gives you a lot of convenience in daily life,” said Edward Zhou, Unseen Reality’s CEO and co-founder. “People will get used to using it.”
Zhou added that although the headset is comparable to Apple Vision Pro in function, it includes additional design features that make the product more lightweight. He said this is what sets it apart from other virtual or mixed-reality products. According to Unseen Reality’s website, the glasses weigh approximately 93 grams, or around one-fifth of a pound; the Apple Vision Pro weighs 750-800 grams.
“The problem is that Apple Vision Pro has fantastic technologies, (but) even though it’s amazing, you cannot use it for long,” said Zhou, who previously worked at Apple Inc. and Meta. “We want something that people can wear all day, but still with the same capability. Something small and mighty.”
It’s not as pricey as the Apple Vision Pro, either. Zhou said the retail price of URXR One will be $899, while the Apple Vision Pro sells for $3,699. He noted that the first batch of URXRs will be even less, with a $100 discount offered on Kickstarter in August.
The company debuted URXR One in June at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, according to Ara Zhang, Unseen Reality’s public relations coordinator. The annual expo is an extended reality and artificial intelligence conference that hosts exhibitors showcasing new technology to over 5,000 attendees.
Along with implementing feedback from the expo, Zhang said Unseen Reality also considers consumers’ desires through Discord and YouTube channels.
As an attendee and speaker at the expo, Jasmine Uniza said URXR One blew her away.
“The clarity on these are unmatched,” said Uniza, CEO of a virtual-reality marketing company and a YouTuber who reviews VR products. “Even in the far corners of your eye on the display, the text is still really clear … You cannot tell where mixed reality on the glasses ends and where your peripherals in the real world start.”
Uniza said she rates and compares VR products on practicality, usability and target audience. According to her, URXR One ranked high on each metric and tailored to the user’s experience.
“Even when (other glasses) try to be consumer-friendly, they are still too tech-heavy. You open the settings and the menus, and there are a ton of different things that you don’t understand,” Uniza said. “The way that (URXR One) is laid out is very simple. You press one button, then you press a button again. (Unseen Reality) really thought about how to make it intuitive.”
Zhou said the company is treating URXR One as a platform to add features to, rather than a product that will be outdated when newer versions are released.
“With every design, we think about the user’s habit first, and I think that’s something we put a lot of effort into. The technology itself is really the best,” Zhou said.
The glasses operate under one of two modes. In direct mode, users can control URXR One with three buttons. In spatial mode, users can use hand gestures to move virtual windows by connecting the glasses with the company’s companion app, “URXR Connect.”
As any large language model analog like Chat GPT might operate, URXR One’s spatial AI technology will become more advanced in the coming years as available spatial data grows, Zhou said.
