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ZDNET Highlights
- Lumus’s ZOE prototype boasts a 70-degree field of view and what appears to be a wraparound display.
- The updated Z-30 prioritizes everyday readability.
- The Z-30 2.0 targets thinner, lighter waveguides to support thinner frames that are becoming more common.
Lummus attracted attention earlier this month at CES 2026 by showcasing its waveguide breakthroughs, which greatly increase the field of view and thinness far greater than before in a smart glass form factor. I spent hands-on time with each of their big announcements, including a fragile prototype held together by tape at the edges.
The company is achieving great success in supplying its waveguide technology directly Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, and proving that geometric waveguides work at consumer scale with standard glass. At CES, Lumus demonstrated a ZOE prototype with a field of view of more than 70 degrees, an optimized Z-30 with 40% more brightness, and a Z-30 2.0 preview that is 40% thinner. David Goldman, vice president of marketing, walked me through each demo with obvious excitement about Lummus’s progress.
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The Meta Ray-Ban display utilizes Lumus 20-degree waveguide lenses delivering 5,000 nits of brightness to compete with bright daylight, helping to validate consumer appetite and expectations for AR glasses. “The response on the performance side has been incredible,” he said. As evidenced by my time on the show floor, the success of the displays inside Meta’s glasses is helping other companies pursue similar form factors and solutions.
Z-30 impressions
We started the demo with the optimized Z-30, an 11-gram optical engine that reaches 8,000 nits per watt efficiency. The test pattern covered a 30-degree field of view with sharp text against a white background. I could easily read Alice in Wonderland’s dense 8.5-point font and didn’t notice any distortion or color changes. The Muppets demo floated transparently with bright colors that really popped, and Goldman confirmed his experience with clear visibility through the lenses when watching Avatar in 3D.
Also: CES 2026: These 7 smart glasses caught our attention — and you can buy a pair now
The one-to-one aspect ratio made images feel significantly larger, despite the slight increase in field of view compared to the Meta’s 20 degrees. The Z-30 2.0 preview features 40% thinner glass and 30% lighter weight, potentially reducing manufacturing steps while increasing yields from raw materials. This technology targets all-day notification, navigation, and translation use cases, where lightweight comfort matters most. I was impressed by how vibrant and clear these lenses looked despite being incredibly thin and light.
ZOE Breakthrough Technology
The star of the show was the 70-degree ZOE prototype. In fact, Goldman handed the only surviving unit to me out of an abundance of caution, as the company had already lost two. “This is the first prototype we’re showing publicly of 70 Degrees,” he said. A cyberpunk airship created wraparound immersion, instantly filling my vision.
I was amazed at how much of my view was covered by such simple, standard glasses.
Also: I’m wearing the world’s first HDR10 smart glasses, and they could easily replace my home TV
The test pattern delivered sharp clarity and vivid colors at 1080p resolution, which I found looked even crisper than the Z-30, despite lower brightness. The prototype used basic glass and optics, proving that a wide field of view could work without exotic materials that could increase costs. ZOE targets wide-ranging spatial entertainment, multi-app productivity, gaming and even defense applications where soldiers require maximum situational awareness.
I can easily see myself using this prototype to relax and watch a 3D movie. Although the display is transparent, I was still surprised by how much of the world I didn’t see through the on-display content. At first, I was concerned about the security issues that could arise when displays take up so much space in the real world.
However, thinking further, I began to see the benefits of that broader coverage, especially as systems became more capable of embedding imagery in and around real-world objects. Every pixel doesn’t need to be illuminated all the time, and such a broad view provides a broader canvas on which to operate AR elements.
Plus: These smart glasses beat out the Meta Ray-Bans for me with useful features and a cheaper price
I asked Goldman about prescription lenses, since 70% of people need vision correction. Lumus waveguides can attach prescription lenses directly to glass, leaving the air gap that allows dust and moisture to penetrate into competing designs. Its mirror-based approach keeps light straight, preserves true colors and saves battery life compared to diffractive rivals.
AR coatings further reduce leakage to almost zero, so viewers are unlikely to see flashing rainbows that give away what’s being shown inside the glasses.
Lumus now covers everything from 20-degree peek to its early work with 70-degree immersion, meaning manufacturers can choose the technology that best suits each use case and form factor. Some of these demos felt extremely fragile, but the optics performed beautifully, making me really excited to see how capable performance will continue to be in normal-looking AR glasses.
