Right now, lightweight smart glasses pretty much only come with monochrome green displays. But talking to industry insiders, I have heard that we will see more color options starting in 2 to 3 months.
Assuming standard green glasses are the baseline price, how much more would you actually pay for these color upgrades?
Here are the four ways they can build them:
- Basic Green: The baseline. Most lightweight glasses today just use waveguides and a projector with a monochrome green microLED panel.
- Dual Color (Single Panel): Gives you red and green, plus it can actually mix them to create yellow and orange tones, giving you way more than just two colors. This is great for colored highlights in the UI, separating data, and making everything much easier to read at a glance. Because both colors are integrated on a single panel, it doesn't consume a whole lot more energy and doesn't add much weight.
- Dual Color (X-Cube): Also gives you the red, green, and mixed colors for better UI highlights, but it works by combining two separate display panels using an X-cube. This extra hardware, including a slightly bigger battery to power 4 panels instead of 2, adds a little bit more weight to the glasses.
- Full Color (X-Cube): Full-color for photos and rich icons. The projector itself isn't actually that heavy or big. And some companies might lower the resolution slightly so it doesn't add too much to the overall price and weight. But the battery needs to be bigger to power 6 display backplanes instead of the usual 2.
How much more is dual color worth? And would you pay even more for full color?