If you happen to check out the Lumus Z-30 Optical Engine for augmented actuality glasses, it appears to be like just about like an abnormal pair of glasses.
It’s light-weight, but it options an AR display screen based mostly on the Z-Lens 2D waveguide structure with a small 30-degree discipline of view. This enables it to suit seamlessly inside customary glasses sizes, providing main practical and aesthetic advantages. They’re a step down from the extra highly effective Z-50, however they serve the aim of becoming inside an abnormal pair of glasses. This progress is an instance of how the tech is transferring ahead to one thing sensible for mainstream makes use of.
Israel-based Lumus confirmed off the AR glasses, with Schott glass, on the SPIE Photonics West 2025 occasion in San Francisco final week. I put them on. The glasses had been tremendous mild and the colours on the display screen had been fairly vibrant. David Goldman, vice chairman of promoting at Lumus, mentioned in an interview with GamesBeat that it combines each brightness and power effectivity.
I wrote about Lumus some years in the past in an age when AR was hyped however didn’t reside as much as its expectations. However the tech has made some headway since then, Goldman mentioned. Lumus has been out there for 14 years. The Maximus got here out about 5 years in the past.
“You noticed the Maximus earlier than. On the time, this was thought of small. However it was nonetheless fairly heavy. Then we went to the Z-50. That is 50 levels. You’ll be able to see the discount within the geometry and the load,” Goldman mentioned.
On the AR lenses, the field with AR imagery may be moved round to completely different locations on the glasses. If you wish to put a field translating language in real-time on the lenses, then that might seemingly go decrease on the lenses. A producer doing conventional AI can put the field with AR photos within the middle, Goldman mentioned.
With Z-30, necessary efficiency elements of AR glasses are optimized to enhance the person expertise. For instance, glasses that characteristic an built-in Z-30 optical engine would require decrease processing necessities and fewer highly effective {hardware} because of having fewer pixels to render, which makes them extra reasonably priced to supply. Plus, units with a mid-sized field-of-view function extra effectively, making a smoother visible expertise and lengthening battery life –making them extra appropriate for long-term shopper use.
Z-30 is light-weight, measuring in at 14.5 grams, providing full colour, 720 x 720 pixels decision, and a brightness of >3,000 nits/Watt. With a 50% discount in weight and quantity in comparison with the Z-50, it permits the creation of even smaller type elements for AR glasses, which has been a essential barrier to entry.
The Z-30 optical engine integrates Lumus’ Z-Lens waveguide structure, which presents good picture high quality and permits for smaller projector designs. It additionally permits versatile positioning of the eye-box, diminished world ghost results, and the chance for direct bonding of Rx lenses or protecting plastic parts. Further advantages of the Z-Lens waveguide structure embody compatibility with microLED projectors, enabling even slimmer and extra energy environment friendly design choices.
Far brighter than different options, Lumus is the one waveguide ideally fitted to outside utilization. With as much as 10 instances higher luminance effectivity over competing waveguides and provide chain companions like Quanta Pc Inc. and Schott, Lumus needs to be the main alternative for OEMs making AR glasses, Goldman mentioned.
Lumus waveguide know-how gives unparalleled colour uniformity and a real white because of the straight-forward mild path inherent in its structure.
Different key benefits: a smaller micro-projector, a big discipline of view, and a distortion-free view of the actual world. Battery effectivity is as much as 10 instances better than some other waveguide in the marketplace, and ahead mild leakage (ahead projection) is inherently negligible, Goldman mentioned.
Lumus’ manufacturing processes supported by its huge provide chain companions, together with Quanta Pc Inc. and Schott, allow scalability for mass manufacturing. The corporate is the main designer of geometric waveguide know-how on the core of a number of current AR merchandise, together with Thales’ Scorpion full-color head-mounted show, Augmedics xVision system for guiding surgeons, Lenovo’s ThinkReality A6 launched in 2019 in addition to MediThinQ’s ScopeEye and MetaScope.
Lumus makes the optical engine for the glasses, and you’ll anticipate shopper units based mostly on such tech popping out inside a few years. The corporate has tech with fields of view unfold between 30 levels to 50 levels to 70 levels, which permits it to cowl every little thing from an emphasis on look to an emphasis on efficiency.
It makes use of a practical optical engine with the corporate’s geometric or reflective wave information, coupled along with a micro projector. It has a carbon-based body for shopper glasses. Goldman confirmed me that it’s fairly simple to learn textual content on a white background if you have a look at the AR display screen on the glasses. Pores and skin colour confirmed up precisely within the photos.
“Now we’re displaying the 30 levels discipline of view,” Goldman mentioned. “Now we’re going to have samples. We’re displaying the 30-degree resolution as a result of clients are asking for a extra near-term resolution. This isn’t as energy hungry as 50 levels, nevertheless it’s nonetheless helpful for some shopper purposes. And it offers extra choices on the subject of the aesthetic.”
With this number of applied sciences, glasses makers can come to Lumus with completely different requests for customized designs. The corporate may add prescriptions to its lenses, immediately bonding the prescription to the glasses. The leakage on the waveguide is lower than 1%.
Common glasses vary in weight from 10 grams to 40 grams. Goldman mentioned 10 grams for AR glasses isn’t doable now. However 40 grams is likely to be doable with extra advances and a deal with AR in only one eye. As for including AI, it can make the glasses heavier, nevertheless it may work with thinner waveguides sooner or later.
Teaming up with glass makers
Quanta Pc and Schott are offering the glass within the mass manufacturing of the wave guides.
Colin Schmucker, enterprise improvement supervisor at Schott, mentioned in an interview that his firm is AR/VR merchandise as a brand new avenue for its high-quality glass. The corporate makes a speciality of making glass with a one millimeter bending radius — enabling a extremely skinny piece of glass. It makes use of these in semiconductors for foldable shows. It makes use of them to make holographic lens purposes. And it additionally makes waveguide lenses for AR glasses.
At a newly constructed manufacturing unit in Malaysia, Schott produces its lenses with reflective waveguide know-how. It’s transferring into high-volume manufacturing and has a partnership with Lumus to make the Z lens framework of reflective waveguides.
“We provide the bottom substrate that may obtain the grading, mainly the excessive refractive index, permitting for the next discipline of view,” Schmucker mentioned. “It lets you have a way more interactive show with extra info. On the identical time, should you have a look at the worth proposition of your diffractive gradings versus reflective versus holographic, we’re addressing the opposite applied sciences with the excessive refractive index wafers.”
To get to super-thin glasses with high-quality AR lenses, Schmucker mentioned it requires wonderful waveguide know-how with an optical high quality degree that doesn’t detract from actuality. You get excessive transparency and the suitable discipline of view together with higher dimension and weight. And also you want higher and higher batteries to energy the projection system.
