Hardware Keeps Improving For AR/MR/VR, by Kevin Krewell

The headset market for augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR) has been heating up with new offerings from Oculus, HP, Lenovo, and slew of smaller vendors. One of the trends behind these new headsets is a push by mainstream computer companies into industrial AR, MR, and VR.

At this year’s Augmented World Expo (AWE) I found some interesting hardware. A leading computer company, Lenovo, demonstrated its new ThinkReality A6 industrial headset at AWE. This a solid AR headset, but the real differentiation for Lenovo is the amount of supporting developer tools and developer services. The ThinkReality A6 headset is designed specifically for the enterprise applications, such as for industrial workers. The device weighs in at only 380 grams. Keeping the glasses light was made possible by housing the computing components on a separate housing that is tethered by a cable to the AR glasses. The controller housing contains a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 application processor and the battery pack and can be worn on a belt or placed in a pocket. Lenovo does incorporate an Intel Movidius VPU (video processing unit) in the headset for real-time video processing. The AR Glasses offers a 1080p resolution per eye as well as a 40-degree diagonal field of view.