AR Displays: Lumus presents 70-degree waveguide made of glass

The Meta Ray-Ban Display launched last fall and features a monocular display with a 20-degree diagonal field of view. It is bright enough to be clearly visible outdoors and efficient enough for several hours of smart glasses use.

This is made possible by the geometric waveguides from optics specialist Lumus, which direct light into the eye using mirrors and prisms instead of light-diffracting nanostructures. This type of waveguide achieves particularly high energy efficiency and is also barely recognizable as a display to outsiders.

At CES, Lumus is presenting three new developments in the field of waveguides. The first is called ZOE and achieves a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels with a diagonal field of view of over 70 degrees. The latter is a record for geometric waveguides.

Until now, only Meta's Orion prototype has managed to combine such a wide field of view with a compact glasses form factor. To achieve this, Meta had to use a silicon carbide waveguide substrate, which drives up the manufacturing costs of the AR glasses into the five-figure range.

Lumus achieves a comparable result with glass. Against this background, the company may have achieved a breakthrough in AR display technology. However, it is still unclear how high the energy consumption of AR glasses with ZOE displays will be. For several hours of use, an integrated battery will likely not be sufficient, which limits everyday usability.

Meta Ray-Ban Display: Waveguide production lags behind demand

Lumus also presented an improved version of the existing Z-30 waveguide model, which is designed for everyday smart glasses with a 30-degree field of view. The new version is 40 percent brighter and offers higher image quality. The waveguide module weighs 11 grams and achieves a luminous efficiency of over 8,000 nits per watt.

Finally, Lumus demonstrated the next generation of the Z-30, which offers the same brightness, sharpness, and color reproduction, but is 40 percent thinner and 30 percent lighter. This would allow for significantly lighter smart glasses in the future or, alternatively, more space for prescription lenses with higher diopters.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display currently only supports diopters in the range of −/ +4. The manufacturer of the waveguides is not Lumus, but the German specialty glass manufacturer Schott. The production of the waveguides is highly complex and makes scaling difficult. Meta announced today that it will not be launching the smart glasses outside the USA for the time being. The reason: The company cannot currently even meet demand in its home market.

heise medien is an official media partner of CES 2026

(vbr)