NANCHANG, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Shadow Creator, an AR hardware company based in Shanghai, announced an ODM partnership at the 2020 World Conference on VR Industry with PhotonLens, an Augmented Reality startup based in the UK founded by former mobile gaming executive Lisa Pan and Patrick Liu, a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in TMT. PhotonLens will serve as the co-designer and global distributor of Photons, a smart glass and lightweight active gaming system. The partnership was disclosed as Shadow Creator CEO Victor Sun announced the release of the new device, called Honghu in Chinese.
Speaking at the 2020 World Conference on VR Industry, Sun stated, “Shadow Creator is co-designing an international, consumer-ready variant of the Honghu device with PhotonLens, with a special focus on active gaming and fitness.” He went on stating that, “With the powerful performance of the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ XR2 Platform, our latest Honghu MR glasses have achieved a significant performance improvement, which can fully meet the diverse needs of consumers, operators, and industry customers.” He later explained that, "The PhotonLens team brings global perspective and a wealth of experience in mobile gaming and telecommunications to bear to the partnership. Our partnership with PhotonLens marks a new era for us as we seek to create a truly consumer-ready AR device that allows people to have fun with immersive media and games, without being isolated from the world or being limited to a small phone screen."
The Conference, also attended by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, featured the announcement of a list of the top 50 XR firms in China. Shadow Creator was included in the list as one of the top 10 Chinese XR companies. This follows Shadow Creator’s winning the “Best Hardware” Auggie Award at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) Asia event in August.
PhotonLens CEO Patrick Liu offered that, "Through our ODM partnership, Photons will unlock new possibilities for consumer-ready AR gaming. With dual 6 DoF controllers, Photons are the only device that offer full 6 DoF head-to-hand tracking, without the need for external sensors. Through an innovative hidden tracking light ring and a magnetic trigger button design, Photons’ 6 DoF controllers are so light and compact that users can easily put them in their pockets and carry them around. Meanwhile, the SLAM algorithms we use offer impeccably accurate positioning, down to the centimeter, meaning that users can seamlessly play games indoors or outdoors. If you want to see what the future of AR is going to look like in the coming years, look at what Shadow Creator and PhotonLens are doing now."
PhotonLens President and Co-Founder Lisa Pan went on to state that, “Photons are unique among AR smart glasses in that we appreciate the importance of design and appearance, and Photons look as good as they perform. As part of our commitment to promoting XR in fashion and lifestyle, we’ve partnered with fashion brands like Ralph & Russo to run XR-enabled fashion shows. Consumers of luxury fashion lead active lifestyles, and they value the best technology that allows them to have fun and stay fit, so we see our partnership with Ralph & Russo as especially symbiotic.”
According to Liu, Photons will be available for pre-orders on Kickstarter by December of 2020 or January of 2021.
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