If you had asked me to wear AR glasses on top of my regular glasses for a short drive in a fancy BMW EV, I would have said, “No thanks.” But now I’m glad I agreed, because I can almost believe that augmented reality makes sense, not only for passengers but also as a tool for drivers.
Here in a parking lot at CES 2024, where automotive technology is everywhere, I climbed into an all-electric BMW iX M60 and put on a pair of Xreal Air 2 augmented reality glasses. I had to wear them over my regular glasses because there wasn’t time to put in the right prescription lenses. Luckily, the AR effect still looked pretty good.
As soon as I put the frames on I noticed a small round platform sitting on the dash. For this experience, BMW placed me in the passenger seat while a BMW representative drove (without AR glasses) and explained the technology to me. For this demo, we drove off the property, away from the convention center, and onto the streets of Las Vegas.
What I saw through the glasses often surprised and delighted me. It’s the subtlety that makes it work. There’s nothing popping up to obstruct your view. Instead, the mostly translucent objects appear on the dashboard or on the road in front of you. To be clear, AR elements can appear anywhere you look: out the windshield, out the passenger window. I sometimes forgot that everyone else couldn’t see what the Xreal Air 2 AR glasses were showing me.
Throughout our journey I saw green arrows leading me to my destination; they made a left or right turn to warn me of an upcoming turn (comically, the driver not wearing the glasses managed to miss one of our turns). The idea here is that this guidance could replace your standard GPS navigation system. Granted, the system is connected to a phone connected to the car. Still, I didn’t have to look at another screen to see where I was going.
In addition to the directional queues, there were these colored blocks that appeared on either side of the car. They were green for all clear, yellow for caution, orange for danger and red for stop. If there was a stop sign ahead, an AR sign would appear for me. There were virtual warning cones to warn me of potholes and other road hazards.
The system also offers space for games and entertainment for your passengers. At one point the sky started raining virtual dice (BMW pre-programmed and timed these commands at specific moments during our trip). Later there was a game where virtual poker chips flew at me. I earned points for each instance I could guide my gaze through a floating ring. I only got 6 points.
There was a media button on the virtual control panel. When we activated it, the BMW rep told me to fold my visor down. On the surface was a virtual screen that looked like an 80-inch screen that was about three feet away from me, and of course it was playing a BMW commercial. I was surprised and appreciated the image quality.
At the end of our trip we drove back to the parking lot and ahead of me I saw guidance to a charging station. The AR graph showed how much charge I had left and how long it would take to charge the iX M60.
One thing I noticed about all the footage is that it understood the surfaces and chassis of the EV. BMW told me it wasn’t using the Xreal’s camera to read the surfaces. Instead, they added a cabin camera to see where I was looking, position the control panel on the dash, and manage occlusion.
The latter is what really sells the AR effect. The guide blocks I mentioned disappear behind the edge of the hood. In other words, they appear as real objects and not in some illusion-crushing and distracting form where I could strangely see the entire blocks through the body of the car.
This is the key to successful AR in a car. Not only must it provide an enhanced experience, but it must also work with and make sense in the real world.
BMW currently has no plans to add AR glasses or transparent AR windshields to any of its EVs. For now it’s a research project and what they learn here could shape the future of your driving experience.
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