Acer has been one of a very few companies to pursue 3D screens with its SpatialLabs lineup, and one question has been on my mind for a while: where does it go from here?
Well, ahead of Computex 2024, we got our answer as Acer has just announced the new $549 SpatialLabs Eyes Stereo Camera — an expansion to the product line that the company is hoping will give people the tools to be creative for its 3D displays.
Going spatial
So in this 4 x 2.6 x 0.9-inch weather-proof casing, you’ll find two cameras (or eyes) up front with an 8MP resolution per eye and Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS). On top of that, quick snappers can take advantage of its auto and touch focus capabilities, but if you’re a pro, you can fully customize ISO, shutter speed and white balance in manual mode.
What is most intriguing to me, however, is the livestreaming portion of this. Content capture is good and all, but we’re seeing that everywhere. Yet with version SpatialLabs Player 3.0, users of the stereo camera will be able to stream to YouTube and other platforms, as well as take video calls in 3D on the likes of Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
It goes without saying that all of this will be compatible with Acer’s growing line of SpatialLabs devices — laptops and monitors with glasses-free 3D screens, which use cameras atop the display to track your eyes to simulate stereoscopic 3D. In my own experience of it, the tech works really well and produces a crisp 3D picture with depth into the display.
Is 3D back? I’m not sure
Look, I know it's easy to be skeptical about 3D. We had a whole thing around 3D TVs and 3D cinema that has seemingly fizzled out, so what makes this time different? SpatialLabs itself is in competition with only itself after all — Asus did launch two glasses-free 3D laptops back in 2023, and then swiftly nixed the idea in the face of incredibly poor sales.
So what extra dimension is Acer seeing that everybody else can’t? It’s elementary, dear reader — the impending explosion in VR and AR. You can already capture 3D content on the iPhone 15 Pro (named Spatial Video) and watch it on devices that support the standard like Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3 and even the Viture Pro XR glasses.
And just like Apple, Acer is making sure any content captured on the Eyes is viewable on all these devices. Moving into 3D live streaming and video calling is the interesting additional bet here, though, and I’ll be curious (if a little suspicious) to see exactly how this is adopted. All eyes on the third quarter of 2024.
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