TCL presents the new Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Version

Thunderbird, an emerging electronics company "incubated" by TCL, has announced its first possibly market-ready AR product, the Smart Glasses Pioneer Version. This pair of spectacles is, as the name suggests, the kind of 'true' smart glasses that integrate a working, partially transparent display capable of overlaying a mixed-reality display over the wearer's real-world surroundings.

Accordingly, Thunderbird and TCL make the new device sound like a blend of features from the Facebook Ray-Bans and Xiaomi's own concept Smart Glasses. They do integrate a camera - obtrusively found on the nose-piece - and touch controls on the outside of the ear-hooks to interact with the glasses and the content, phone-like apps, smart-home and -car controls they are rated to sync with.

The Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Version are built around micro-LED displays that supports their next-gen functions. However, unlike their Xiaomi counterparts, their output is in color rather than monochrome. Thunderbird notes that it has been working on these components over the last 3 years in order to make the resulting glasses as thin, convincing and immersive as possible.

This involves the development of an in-house wave-guide, as well as a careful choice of high refractive index glass, to end up with a product that is as compact, efficient and power-efficient as possible. TCL and Thunderbird have yet to outline a release for the Smart Glasses Pioneer Version, although they are touted as mass-production and consumer-ready at this stage.

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