In the event you check out the Lumus Z-30 Optical Engine for augmented actuality glasses, it appears to be like just about like an atypical pair of glasses.
It’s light-weight, but it options an AR display based mostly on the Z-Lens 2D waveguide structure with a small 30-degree subject of view. This permits it to suit seamlessly inside commonplace glasses sizes, providing main purposeful and aesthetic advantages. They’re a step down from the extra highly effective Z-50, however they serve the aim of becoming inside an atypical pair of glasses. This progress is an instance of how the tech is shifting 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 had been fairly vibrant. David Goldman, vp of selling at Lumus, stated in an interview with GamesBeat that it combines each brightness and vitality effectivity.
I wrote about Lumus some years in the past in an age when AR was hyped however didn’t dwell as much as its expectations. However the tech has made some headway since then, Goldman stated. 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-about small. Nevertheless it was nonetheless fairly heavy. Then we went to the Z-50. That is 50 levels. You may see the discount within the geometry and the load,” Goldman stated.
On the AR lenses, the field with AR imagery might 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 will possible go decrease on the lenses. A producer doing conventional AI can put the field with AR photographs within the middle, Goldman stated.
With Z-30, essential efficiency facets of AR glasses are optimized to enhance the person expertise. For instance, glasses that function 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 inexpensive to provide. Plus, gadgets with a mid-sized field-of-view function extra effectively, making a smoother visible expertise and increasing battery life –making them extra appropriate for long-term shopper use.
Z-30 is light-weight, measuring in at 14.5 grams, providing full coloration, 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 allows the creation of even smaller kind elements for AR glasses, which has been a vital barrier to entry.
The Z-30 optical engine integrates Lumus’ Z-Lens waveguide structure, which gives good picture high quality and permits for smaller projector designs. It additionally allows versatile positioning of the eye-box, decreased world ghost results, and the chance for direct bonding of Rx lenses or protecting plastic components. Extra advantages of the Z-Lens waveguide structure embrace 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 suited to outside utilization. With as much as 10 occasions higher luminance effectivity over competing waveguides and provide chain companions like Quanta Laptop Inc. and Schott, Lumus desires to be the main alternative for OEMs making AR glasses, Goldman stated.
Lumus waveguide know-how gives unparalleled coloration uniformity and a real white as a result of straight-forward mild path inherent in its structure.
Different key benefits: a smaller micro-projector, a big subject of view, and a distortion-free view of the true world. Battery effectivity is as much as 10 occasions better than another waveguide available on the market, and ahead mild leakage (ahead projection) is inherently negligible, Goldman stated.
Lumus’ manufacturing processes supported by its huge provide chain companions, together with Quanta Laptop 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 gadgets 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 allows it to cowl the whole lot from an emphasis on look to an emphasis on efficiency.
It makes use of a purposeful 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 on the glasses. Pores and skin coloration confirmed up precisely within the photographs.
“Now we’re displaying the 30 levels subject of view,” Goldman stated. “Now we’re going to have samples. We’re displaying the 30-degree resolution as a result of prospects are asking for a extra near-term resolution. This isn’t as energy hungry as 50 levels, but it surely’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 also can add prescriptions to its lenses, instantly 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 stated 10 grams for AR glasses isn’t doable now. However 40 grams is perhaps doable with extra advances and a deal with AR in only one eye. As for including AI, it can make the glasses heavier, but it surely may work with thinner waveguides sooner or later.
Teaming up with glass makers
Quanta Laptop and Schott are offering the glass within the mass manufacturing of the wave guides.
Colin Schmucker, enterprise growth supervisor at Schott, stated in an interview that his firm is taking a look at 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 very 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 facility in Malaysia, Schott produces its lenses with reflective waveguide know-how. It’s shifting 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 a better subject of view,” Schmucker stated. “It lets you have a way more interactive show with extra info. On the similar time, when 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 stated it requires glorious waveguide know-how with an optical high quality degree that doesn’t detract from actuality. You get excessive transparency and the suitable subject of view together with higher measurement and weight. And also you want higher and higher batteries to energy the projection system.
