Waveguides cap how good AR glasses can look, and the number of companies able to make them in volume is small. Lumus is widening its own list: Zhejiang Crystal-Optech will build its reflective waveguides in China under an agreement announced this week.

That makes three manufacturers for Lumus, after Quanta Computer and SCHOTT, and the first based in China. The company describes the move as capacity and geographic spread, aimed at customer programs moving out of prototyping.

Crystal-Optech’s credentials are process-heavy: thin-film optics, coating, precision machining and assembly, with more than 30 billion components shipped across consumer electronics, automotive optics and XR hardware, according to Lumus. Board member Fenglei Liu called it Lumus’ design meeting his company’s scale.

Lumus favors reflective, or geometric, waveguides over the diffractive optics most competitors use. Its range covers modest fields of view for everyday display glasses up to wide, immersive setups beyond 70 degrees.

The logic is volume. Money in the near term sits with light glasses that need cheap optics, not flagship headsets, and splitting output across Taiwan, Germany and China reduces reliance on one supply line.

Source: Auganix