South Korean operator LG Uplus hailed the potential for a further boost in uptake to its 5G network arising from a deal it claimed would make it the first to offer consumer services on AR glasses produced by Chinese manufacturer Nreal.

LG Uplus plans to deploy the Nreal Light glasses during Q3, stating early examples of the device garnered a positive response from consumers and prompted it to press ahead with a B2C offering using its 5G infrastructure.

It plans to begin offering consumers early trials of the glasses through dedicated experience zones in 24 of its retail locations from 8 June. These will demonstrate high-resolution multimedia and gaming content, alongside access to popular services including Facebook and YouTube.

The Nreal Light glasses tip the scales at 88-grams, a feature LG Uplus SVP Song Dae-won expects to be a key selling point, noting it has been “difficult for general customers” to access AR glasses due to current models being heavy, expensive and offering “limited content”.

On its website, Nreal lists specifications including USB-C compatibility; a 52-degree field of view; simultaneous localisation and mapping; six degrees of freedom (6DoF) and image tracking; and plane detection. A computing unit runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor and an unspecified version of Android.

Building the market
LG Uplus and Nreal are providing SDKs and online seminars to small- and medium-sized content developers to help them “understand the AR glass” and so “develop and commercialise their own apps”, Song said.

While LG Uplus did not reveal pricing, Nreal opened an ordering process for a developer kit priced at $1,199, with a consumer offer pending which will cost $499.

The operator launched consumer 5G service in April 2019: by end-March it had signed up 1.46 million subscribers and reported a 37 per cent increase in ARPU over the year compared with 4G.