If you take a look at the Lumus Z-30 Optical Engine for augmented reality glasses, it looks pretty much like an ordinary pair of glasses.
It’s lightweight, yet it features an AR screen based on the Z-Lens 2D waveguide architecture with a small 30-degree field of view. This allows it to fit seamlessly within standard glasses sizes, offering major functional and aesthetic benefits. They’re a step down from the more powerful Z-50, but they serve the purpose of fitting inside an ordinary pair of glasses. This progress is an example of how the tech is moving forward to something practical for mainstream uses.
Israel-based Lumus showed off the AR glasses, with Schott glass, at the SPIE Photonics West 2025 event in San Francisco last week. I put them on. The glasses were super light and the colors on the screen were pretty vibrant. David Goldman, vice president of marketing at Lumus, said in an interview with GamesBeat that it combines both brightness and energy efficiency.
I wrote about Lumus some years ago in an age when AR was hyped but didn’t live up to its expectations. But the tech has made some headway since then, Goldman said. Lumus has been in the market for 14 years. The Maximus came out about five years ago.
“You saw the Maximus before. At the time, this was considered small. But it was still pretty heavy. Then we went to the Z-50. This is 50 degrees. You can see the reduction in the geometry and the weight,” Goldman said.
On the AR lenses, the box with AR imagery can be moved around to different places on the glasses. If you want to put a box translating language in real-time on the lenses, then that would likely go lower on the lenses. A manufacturer doing traditional AI can put the box with AR images in the center, Goldman said.
With Z-30, important performance aspects of AR glasses are optimized to improve the user experience. For example, glasses that feature an integrated Z-30 optical engine will require lower processing requirements and less powerful hardware thanks to having fewer pixels to render, which makes them more affordable to produce. Plus, devices with a mid-sized field-of-view operate more efficiently, creating a smoother visual experience and extending battery life –making them more compatible for long-term consumer use.
Z-30 is lightweight, measuring in at 14.5 grams, offering full color, 720 x 720 pixels resolution, and a brightness of >3,000 nits/Watt. With a 50% reduction in weight and volume compared to the Z-50, it enables the creation of even smaller form factors for AR glasses, which has been a critical barrier to entry.
The Z-30 optical engine integrates Lumus’ Z-Lens waveguide architecture, which offers good image quality and allows for smaller projector designs. It also enables flexible positioning of the eye-box, reduced world ghost effects, and the possibility for direct bonding of Rx lenses or protective plastic elements. Additional benefits of the Z-Lens waveguide architecture include compatibility with microLED projectors, enabling even slimmer and more power efficient design options.
Far brighter than other solutions, Lumus is the only waveguide ideally suited for outdoor usage. With up to 10 times better luminance efficiency over competing waveguides and supply chain partners like Quanta Computer Inc. and Schott, Lumus wants to be the leading choice for OEMs making AR glasses, Goldman said.
Lumus waveguide technology provides unparalleled color uniformity and a true white due to the straight-forward light path inherent in its architecture.
Other key advantages: a smaller micro-projector, a large field of view, and a distortion-free view of the real world. Battery efficiency is up to 10 times greater than any other waveguide on the market, and forward light leakage (forward projection) is inherently negligible, Goldman said.
Lumus’ manufacturing processes supported by its big supply chain partners, including Quanta Computer Inc. and Schott, enable scalability for mass manufacturing. The company is the leading designer of geometric waveguide technology at the core of several existing AR products, including Thales’ Scorpion full-color head-mounted display, Augmedics xVision system for guiding surgeons, Lenovo’s ThinkReality A6 released in 2019 as well as MediThinQ’s ScopeEye and MetaScope.
Lumus makes the optical engine for the glasses, and you can expect consumer devices based on such tech coming out within a couple of years. The company has tech with fields of view spread between 30 degrees to 50 degrees to 70 degrees, which enables it to cover everything from an emphasis on appearance to an emphasis on performance.
It uses a functional optical engine with the company’s geometric or reflective wave guide, coupled together with a micro projector. It has a carbon-based frame for consumer glasses. Goldman showed me that it is quite easy to read text on a white background when you look at the AR screen on the glasses. Skin color showed up accurately in the images.
“Now we’re showing the 30 degrees field of view,” Goldman said. “Now we’re going to have samples. We’re showing the 30-degree solution because customers are asking for a more near-term solution. This isn’t as power hungry as 50 degrees, but it’s still useful for some consumer applications. And it gives more options when it comes to the aesthetic.”
With this variety of technologies, glasses makers can come to Lumus with different requests for custom designs. The company can also add prescriptions to its lenses, directly bonding the prescription to the glasses. The leakage on the waveguide is less than 1%.
Regular glasses range in weight from 10 grams to 40 grams. Goldman said 10 grams for AR glasses isn’t doable now. But 40 grams might be doable with more advances and a focus on AR in just one eye. As for adding AI, it will make the glasses heavier, but it might work with thinner waveguides in the future.
Teaming up with glass makers
Quanta Computer and Schott are providing the glass in the mass production of the wave guides.
Colin Schmucker, business development manager at Schott, said in an interview that his company is looking at AR/VR products as a new avenue for its high-quality glass. The company specializes in making glass with a one millimeter bending radius — enabling a really thin piece of glass. It uses these in semiconductors for foldable displays. It uses them to make holographic lens applications. And it also makes waveguide lenses for AR glasses.
At a newly built factory in Malaysia, Schott produces its lenses with reflective waveguide technology. It’s moving into high-volume manufacturing and has a partnership with Lumus to make the Z lens framework of reflective waveguides.
“We supply the base substrate that can receive the grading, basically the high refractive index, allowing for a higher field of view,” Schmucker said. “It enables you to have a much more interactive display with more information. At the same time, if you look at the value proposition of your diffractive gradings versus reflective versus holographic, we’re addressing the other technologies with the high refractive index wafers.”
To get to super-thin glasses with high-quality AR lenses, Schmucker said it requires excellent waveguide technology with an optical quality level that doesn’t detract from reality. You get high transparency and the appropriate field of view along with better size and weight. And you need better and better batteries to power the projection system.
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