ThinkReality A3 | 2020-2021

Designers: Lenovo Experience Design Group, Lenovo, Morrisville, North Carolina, USA
Manufacturer: Lenovo, Morrisville, North Carolina, USA

Concept
Augmented reality has huge potential to accelerate productivity and improve lives by supplying interactive information, graphics, and video mapped into the physical space of the world around us. But bulky and low-res headsets have kept many users from adopting the technology.

Enter the ThinkReality A3: vivid high-resolution imagery bursts from a surprisingly compact pair of glasses, opening the way for a broad range of users to benefit from the power of AR.

This union of high resolution and high field of view imagery with a physically minimal yet robust set of glasses was the core idea driving the A3.

As the A3 becomes the catalyst for AR technology reaching more people, it will make workers more capable, efficient, and safe. In industrial contexts, the A3 will streamline tasks, fast-forwarding tedious aspects in favor of aspects that require thoughtful human input.

For example it will identify the right box in a warehouse aisle, skipping the usual search time. It will be used to supervise workers in industrial processes and stands to prevent numerous malfunctions and injuries by identifying incorrect procedures via computer vision or live supervision before problems can occur.

Another primary use case for the A3 is as a display for users in mobile contexts. Nothing else lets you instantly deploy 6 monitors for your laptop while sitting at a tiny café table or in a cramped airplane seat.

These levitating virtual displays float at their assigned positions in space, no matter how users move their heads.

Using A3 as a display also alleviates privacy and confidentiality concerns when working in public areas, as the display content is illegible to everyone but the wearer.

When used in education, the A3 will offer students memorable and mentally-engaging lesson content that is retained better than current methods thanks to its interactivity and visual richness.
This value is compounded by the current need for remote learning, which traditionally struggles to match the engagement of face-to-face education.

Plentiful availability of reliable and consistent AR software will be essential for widespread adoption and the growth of the AR industry.

As an early player from a dependable and prominent manufacturer, the A3 hardware will be an indispensable testbed for developers producing the next wave of AR software.
As it advances the state of the art in so many sectors, A3 is pioneering the way for the young AR industry to make weighty contributions to work, education, and entertainment facets of culture and improve countless lives along the way.

Design
For the targeted commercial users, a set of AR glasses should blend into life instead of standing out as a piece of technological equipment. So the A3’s front frames are intentionally crafted to appear as a pair of traditional glasses.

As a result, users will enjoy using them anywhere -from consulting interactive schematics on a factory floor to immersing themselves in 360 real estate imagery in a coffee shop.
Relentless weight reduction and fit tuning have yielded a disappearingly comfortable pair of glasses.

To further tailor the glasses to individual users, the A3 has a modular architecture which enables on-the-fly customization: the front frames and lenses can be replaced for different tint levels or side shielding, and temple ends and nosepieces are easily swapped between several included options for the optimal fit.

Prescription lenses mount to the nosepiece forming a single assembly that’s easily exchanged when multiple users share a headset. These part changes are tool-free and rely on simple yet secure detents.

The front frames feature a black-to-clear gradient which visually lightens the glasses from an external view, and minimizes their signature in the wearer’s field of view.
The glasses’ control buttons are easily accessible and differentiated via texture so users can control the glasses solely by feel. The glasses’ cable is removable, a key feature for serviceability in heavy-use environments.

The A3’s temples have a unique tapering form to contain their circuitry and to allow the cable connector to recess deep in the temple for stability. At the user’s ear, the temple profile steps down to thinner removable temple ends, which lighten the overall form and fit perfectly over the ears.

This transition is punctuated by a material break from rigid plastic to the soft translucent TPU which adorns all of the A3’s skin-contact parts, conveying their softness and comfort on the user’s head.

And when work is complete, the A3’s temples can fold into a compact storage position unlike its fixed-temple competitors. This makes them far more portable and easy to stow for transit between jobs.