The Lenovo NBD new glass C100 is one of the most hyped wearable smart gears in China. As Google Glass failed to make its way into the Chinese market due to the PRC’s ban on all of Google’s internet services, many local manufacturers have been trying to create the Chinese version of this cutting-edge device, but it was Lenovo’s NBD (New Business Development) Platform that made it possible. Channeling the resources of the world’s largest computer manufacture, NBD successfully released two models of smart glasses tailored-made for Chinese users.
While the Lenovo NBD VUZIX M100, with a price tag of $1300, is mainly designed for business users, the new glass is more marketed as a consumer product. Although Lenovo hasn’t revealed the price of this device yet, there is reason to estimate an initial price tag of under $800.
I have been wearing the new glass a lot these days, and wherever I go, people ask three fundamental questions about the device:
What is the new glass?
What do you see with the new glass?
What can you do with the new glass?
Instead of diving into a fully detailed review directly, I want to address these key questions first. Please keep in mind none of the photos could do the new glass display justice. The holographic nature of the display makes it impossible to give an accurate visual representation, but this is already the best attempt I could give. What you really see with your right eye is a million times better.
What is the Lenovo NBD new glass?
The Lenovo NBD new glass is an Android-based headset, similar to the most talked about Google Glass. You can wear it with an ordinary pair of glasses, and enjoy the many functions it brings. A beam of light is projected horizontally through a prism in the upper right hand corner of your glasses (or the standard frame that comes with the new glass), which is then refracted directly towards your line of vision. The result: shift your eyes up and to the right and you’ll see a semi-transparent screen, similar to looking at a small computer monitor floating in the air.
After downloading an app called “Glass Manager” from the official website of Lenovo NBD, you can connect new glass to your phone with Bluetooth, allowing the device access to data such as your mobile phone contacts. With an 8MP camera capable of taking pictures and video, a microphone, an audio jack, an earpiece, integrated battery, a dual-core processor, and internal storage, the possibility is limitless.
The Lenovo NBD new glass isn’t available for retail at the moment. For now, only a limited number of selected testers and developers have access to the device. Although the hardware is already settled, the software is expected to undergo significant improvements before they’re publicly available.
What do you see with the Lenovo NBD new glass?
I’ve read a few articles about Google Glass before I tried the new glass, so I already had a sense regarding what it might be capable of. With that said, I was still quite blown away when I put it on for the first time. This isn’t some basic display that shows tiny bits of text and the occasional picture. It’s a fully featured display, as if a computer monitor was affixed to your daily vision. You can take a picture and instantly see how it turned out. You can take a video and watch the full video playback. You can read the latest news by opening a third-party news app. You can access navigation and see a full turn-by-turn display guiding you in real time.
As a matter of fact, the new glass display is not always on and instead hides by default, to both prevent distraction and save battery. Pressing the power/standby key or tapping the touch panel will wake new glass up, illuminating the display and allowing you to interact.
The display is semi-transparent, so it won’t completely block any part of your vision. You’ll always be able to see what’s in front of you. With that said, you need to shift your eyes far enough to the upper right to see clearly what is shown on the display. It is absolutely a distraction to some degree, which could raise questions about safety during daily tasks such as driving a car and riding a bicycle.
To sum it up: when the new glass is actively working and the display is on, it’s like having your own personal video monitor affixed in your vision, controllable with swipe gestures and voice commands. When the new glass is at standby, it won’t distract you at all.
What can the Lenovo NBD new glass do?
For now, Lenovo hasn’t built a fully-featured product with the new glass yet. Instead, the new glass is more of a platform that developers can leverage and exploit to create completely new experiences. Lenovo NBD is more focusing on the hardware and basics, allowing developers to create apps and games, hoping that they will extend the experience of the new glass which may end up rivaling the dominant Google Glass.
However, since there are many people asking, let’s talk about the core components of new glass, and then expand by discussing the possibilities.
Take (and display) pictures
Record (and display) videos
Read and send text messages
Navigation
Upload photos and videos to Baidu Clouds
Interact with the Voice Assistant
Install apps from 3rd parties
Adjust settings
The above set of already existent features are of utmost importance to the new glass experience and Lenovo will focus on perfecting their performance for launch.
The Voice Assistance can respond to your questions in both audio and text, but probably not the way you want it to. It may even joke with you, but if you are expecting it to perform anywhere like Siri or Google Now, you will be disappointed. Just keep in mind that the Voice Assistant app only supports Chinese now, the English shown on the screenshots are manually translated by me.
Compared to the somewhat dumb voice assistant, the Messaging app proves quite useful on occasions such as driving a car. Just say the words you and the new glass will convert them into text and then send the message to your specified contact.
Both the still camera and video camera apps work as designed. Opening the app then the new glass will instantly take a shot or record a video, this could come in handy when you want to record something immediately. There isn’t a digital viewfinder in either still camera or video camera mode, what you see with your human eyes is what you get. The photos and videos have decent quality, although still no match for the snaps of high-end smartphones.
The Navigation app, which is included in the V1.0 firmware, disappeared in the V1.1 firmware, replaced by a Video Calling app, which I still haven’t figured out how to use. I haven’t tried the Navigation app personally, but according to my fellow testers, it works fine on the V1.0 firmware, and the reason why Lenovo has taken it out is unknown, maybe it will show up again in the next firmware upgrade.
Photos and videos can be automatically backed up to Baidu Cloud storage if you turn on the “back up” in the new glass settings.
Meanwhile, Lenovo NBD will also be encouraging 3rd party developers who will undoubtedly bring their wares to this product. Since the Lenovo NBD new glass has a higher display resolution (800*480), it is not fully compatible with the apps available for Google Glass, which has a display resolution of 640*360. Lenovo’s attempt in bringing better visual experiences to the users is admirable, but the higher resolution does become a liability for software development, as there would be more difficulties in application transplantation.
Fortunately, you can install almost all the Android smartphone and tablet apps on the new glass. I tried many of my favorite multi-media applications and they can all run smoothly on this device.
I could read the latest news on BBC and CNN while taking a walk, I could listen to music on TTPOD while watching the lyrics on the display, I could also stream live news and TV shows.
The new glass generally works fine with applications which support landscape mode, so it is more compatible with applications designed for tablets. Apps for smartphones can also be opened, but if the app doesn’t have a landscape mode, it won’t be very useful as things look collapsed and fallen down to one side.
Even with tablet applications, the experiences are far from perfect. Swipe gestures on the touch panel can help you scroll and browse the content in style, but often fails to select the right link to enter. I often struggled to play the right song in TTPOD, or to open the right piece of news in BBC with the swipe gestures. And sometimes when I swipe down on the touch panel to exit an app, a dialog box pops up, asking me to confirm or cancel, I have no way to accurately touch “Confirm”, the only way out is to press the camera button, take a picture, then return to the home screen.
Although the Micro USB port on the new glass does support USB on the go and can host a pair of mouse and keyboard, or a remote controller, thus help you precisely control the new glass, it is still very inconvenient and seems like too much burden for a device which is supposed to make your life easier.
But if the new glass could hit the stardom according to Lenovo NBD’s plan, we will expect more applications easily controlled with swipe gestures or voice commands to go online soon after the retail release of the device.
Here are some examples of tailor-made applications I would expect to see available for the new glass in the near future:
Wechat: sending and receiving messages (text and voice), updating Wechat Moments (text, picture and short video).
Sina Microblog (Chinese version of Twitter): browsing blogs, uploading pictures, writing blogs with voice assistant.
QQ: sending and receiving messages (text and voice), updating Qzone blogs.
Youku: browsing and streaming online videos, uploading videos snapped by the new glass camera.
And apps such as Video feeds, TV live broadcasting, Music, News feeds for the new glass may shortly be made available for the new glass. Since the device is mainly targeting Chinese consumers, famous international apps such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram would come later, but I believe the Lenovo engineers will make the new glass compatible with Glassware (applications for Google Glass) very soon.
What about games? It’s a little bit unclear how game applications might fit into the ecosystem of the new glass. While most apps could easily transition themselves to a simplified glass experience with notifications, game developers will need to completely rethink the gaming experience for the new glass. And since Google failed to deliver in this particular area for its Glass, I don’t think the Lenovo NBD could do better.
Summary
Anyway, the new glass, or any smart glasses to be precise, present new opportunities with the potential to create completely new experiences. However, here come the million dollar questions: will developers develop for the new glass? Will consumers buy and wear the new glass?
Typically, developers want to develop for platforms that have lots of users, of which even the dominant Google Glass has very few, let alone the new glass, which isn’t even publicly available. Also, consumers want to use platforms that have a wide variety of apps and games, often playing “wait and see” until a product catches on.
So will the Lenovo NBD new glass catch on? That remains to be seen. The biggest challenges for the new glass appear to be the price, and the reliance on developer support. Being based on Android offers it unlimited possibilities, but if the device is priced too high and doesn’t woo consumers, it certainly won’t attract developer support, either.
But even if the new glass failed on its mission to become a successful consumer product and build a new industry of smart glasses in China, it won’t take long for other similar products to step in and pick up the baton. So, the new glass, in one form or another, is here to stay
