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DigiLens

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DigiLens
Information
Industry Augmented reality optics, holographic waveguides
Founder Jonathan Waldern
Headquarters Sunnyvale, California, United States
Notable Personnel Ratson Morad (CEO), Alastair Grant (CTO)
Products Crystal waveguides, ARGO smart glasses
Website https://www.digilens.com


DigiLens is a company that makes waveguides. All of DigiLens' products have a flat focus or are primarily intended for use with projectors that have a flat focus. The company is based in Sunnyvale, California, and develops holographic waveguides for see-through augmented reality displays, working with partners in the automotive, enterprise, consumer, avionics and military markets, and uses its own photopolymer material and a contact-copy manufacturing process.[1]

DigiLens has marketed their Crystal 30 waveguides, Crystal 50 waveguides, and their ARGO smartglasses.[2][3] Besides selling its own hardware, the company licenses its waveguide technology to other manufacturers; its former chief executive Chris Pickett described the goal in 2021 as being "in every XR product or experience you buy" rather than being "the XR product you buy".[4][5]

DigiLens uses a volume Bragg grating approach for making its waveguides.[6][7]

DigiLens' products generally have a field of view of 50 degrees or lower. The Crystal50 waveguide has a 50-degree diagonal field of view, while the Crystal30 waveguides used in ARGO give a 30-degree field of view in a landscape layout.[2][3]

DigiLens' founder is Jonathan Waldern. Digilens was founded as SBG Labs Inc. SBG stands for switchable bragg grating.[8][9]

DigiLens has partnered with Qualcomm.[10][11]

Samsung is a lead investor in DigiLens.[10][12]

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Re-opened every new citation (DigiLens press releases, ARGO spec packet v2.2, Road to VR, UploadVR, MIXED, optics.org, Lightwave, Avionics International, DIGITIMES, PR Newswire, Metamaterial, SPIE paper record) and checked funding rounds, product specs, dates, leadership and partnerships against them. About review dates.

History

SBG Labs and the DigiLens name

The DigiLens name first belonged to an earlier company, DigiLens Inc., which developed optical components based on electrically switchable Bragg gratings and failed during the downturn in the optical telecommunications market. On 31 October 2003, SBG Labs Inc. of Sunnyvale announced that it had bought all of DigiLens' patents and trademarks at a foreclosure auction held by a syndicate of DigiLens' secured lenders. Jonathan Waldern, then president and chief executive of SBG Labs, said the company would use the DigiLens brand and patents in the consumer and automotive display markets. At the time SBG Labs was sampling its first DigiLens Holodisplay product, intended for digital camera viewfinders.[8]

In April 2012, SBG Labs, with Waldern as founder and chief technology officer, signed a ten-year agreement with Rockwell Collins to bring avionics and military displays to market based on its "DigiLens Switchable Waveguide Technology". The two companies described the optics as thin, flat waveguides that guide the image itself rather than only illumination, allowing large LCD panels to be replaced with small edge-lit silicon microdisplays.[13] The company later traded as DigiLens.[14]

Aviation head-up display

DigiLens waveguides reached production in aviation. According to Avionics International, the waveguide optics in Rockwell Collins' HGS-3500 head-up guidance system were designed by DigiLens and produced by Rockwell Collins, and pilots of Embraer Legacy 450 and 500 business jets were among the first to use this kind of augmented reality technology in a head-up display. DigiLens chief executive Chris Pickett told the publication in 2018 that the company's "holographically printed diffractive patterns bend, shape, magnify and route the light".[15]

Funding

DigiLens raised 2 million US dollars in 2014 and a further 6.3 million US dollars in a later round that included In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the CIA. In January 2017 it completed a 22 million US dollar Series B round whose investors included Continental, Sony, Panasonic and Foxconn, alongside venture firms led by long-term backer Alsop Louie Partners. Waldern, then described as founder and CEO, said the money would go toward an "AutoHUD" for Continental, a "MotoHUD" demonstrated with BMW, and "EyeHUD" smart glasses.[14] By the Series C round in 2019, Continental owned about 18 percent of the company.[16]

Round Announced Amount Investors named
Early rounds 2014 and later 2 million and 6.3 million US dollars In-Q-Tel[14]
Series B January 2017 22 million US dollars Continental, Sony, Panasonic, Foxconn, and venture firms including Alsop Louie Partners[14]
Series C 14 May 2019 50 million US dollars (total venture funding 85 million US dollars) UDC Ventures and Samsung Ventures (new), with Niantic, Continental AG, Sony Innovation Fund, Diamond Edge Ventures and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings[1][16]
Series D, first close 4 November 2021 More than 50 million US dollars, valuing the company at more than 500 million US dollars Samsung Electronics (lead), Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Diamond Edge Ventures, Alsop Louie Partners, 37 Interactive Entertainment, UDC Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures[12]
Series D, second close 7 April 2022 More than 50 million US dollars, at a valuation of more than 530 million US dollars Corning and Optimas Capital Management (the strategic investment arm of Goertek) joined[17][7]

Leadership

Chris Pickett was chief executive from at least 2018 through 2024.[15][18] In December 2020 Waldern joined Metamaterial Inc. as chief technology officer; that company's announcement listed his DigiLens roles as chairman, CTO and CSO and described him as an inventor on more than 170 patents, mainly in XR display applications.[19] As of September 2026, DigiLens' company page lists Ratson Morad as chief executive officer and Alastair Grant as chief technology officer, with Pascal Levensohn of Dolby Ventures as board chairman.[20]

Technology

DigiLens waveguides are diffractive waveguides. Instead of etching nanostructures, the company prints them: it developed a photopolymer material and a copy process that makes precision diffractive optics by printing the gratings.[16] Its company page describes holographic photopolymers applied with inkjet printing, glass or plastic substrates, and switchable gratings for increasing resolution.[20] Waldern, Alastair Grant and Milan Popovich presented the company's switchable Bragg grating waveguide optics for augmented reality in a 2018 SPIE conference paper.[9] In 2017 the company described its approach as "optical origami", printing holographic optics into nanoscale thin films for full-color waveguide displays.[14]

The Crystal50 waveguide, shown at CES 2020, is a full-color lens with a 50-degree diagonal field of view. DigiLens said its architecture multiplexes several diffractive structures in the same waveguide, which compresses the optical path and widens the field of view without enlarging the lens. In the company's Iris reference headset, which used a 720p pico projector and a VSLAM head tracker, Crystal50 gave a 60-degree binocular field of view.[2] UploadVR reported in 2021 that Crystal50 gives "a HoloLens 2 class field of view" in a glasses-like frame, with four times less "eye glow" so that other people can see the wearer's eyes.[21] A second-generation full-color Crystal30 waveguide followed at CES 2022.[17]

T-REx (Transparent Resolution Expander), announced in August 2021, uses switchable gratings built into the waveguide to shift the projected image by a small pixel offset. The technique, known as wobulation, shows two offset sub-frames in quick succession so that the pixels of one fill the gaps in the other, doubling the effective resolution of the projector. The gratings switch in 50 microseconds, fast enough for full-color RGB wobulation at 60 Hz and 90 Hz, and work with LCoS, microLED, DLP, OLED and laser beam scanning projectors.[5] DigiLens gave its power draw as 19.8 milliwatts for an RGB Crystal50 waveguide at 60 Hz.[22]

In July 2021 DigiLens and Mitsubishi Chemical, an existing investor, announced plastic waveguides that DigiLens said performed "nearly the same" as glass and did not need nanoimprint lithography. In Road to VR's report, a plastic Crystal30-G waveguide weighed 2.73 grams against 4.39 grams for the glass version, though it was 27 percent thicker.[23][4]

Products

Product Announced Type Notes
Crystal50 January 2020 (CES 2020) Waveguide lens Full color; 50-degree diagonal field of view; 60-degree binocular field of view in the Iris reference design[2]
Design v1 May 2021 Modular reference smart glasses Snapdragon XR2; 6 GB RAM, 128 GB storage; 1280 x 720 per-eye DLP display; 44 x 25 degrees (50 degrees diagonal) field of view; 60, 72 or 90 Hz; frame, optics and display module snap together without tools; offered to a small number of partner companies[24][21]
T-REx August 2021 Switchable waveguide component Doubles projector resolution by wobulation; offered to licensees[5]
Crystal30 (second generation) January 2022 (CES 2022) Waveguide lens Full color[17]
ARGO 3 January 2023 Standalone AR smart glasses Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1, 12 GB memory, 128 GB storage; Crystal30 Gen3 waveguides; 30-degree field of view; more than 2,500 nits and more than 85 percent see-through; 48 MP camera; five-microphone array; Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2; DigiOS on AOSP Android 12[25][3]
Insight Kit (with Avegant) September 2024 Display development kit Crystal30 waveguides with Avegant's AG-30L2 LCoS light engine (1.4 cc); more than 3,000 nits[18]

ARGO was announced on 3 January 2023 as a standalone device for enterprise and industrial workers in fields such as healthcare, logistics, telecommunications and defense.[25] MIXED reported that it has two tracking cameras on the temples, a hot-swappable battery and GPS.[26] DigiLens' specification sheet lists design to MIL-STD-810G, ANSI Z87.1 eye-safety compliance, a 6 Wh internal battery, hand tracking, and support for OpenXR, WebXR and Snapdragon Spaces.[3]

Manufacturing

DigiLens makes waveguides by printing them with polymer.[10][16] In 2019 the company said its contact-copy process was low-cost and that it worked with OEM partners in the automotive, enterprise, consumer, avionics and military markets.[1] DigiLens generally licenses its technology rather than making waveguides itself.[5] In 2024 optics.org reported that DigiLens manufactures waveguides through licensees approved under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and that its China-based manufacturing partner Crystal-Optech had upgraded its waveguide line.[27]

In October 2025, Kaynes Technology opened a waveguide manufacturing line in Mysuru, India, in partnership with DigiLens, which supplied process expertise, automation and inline process controls. Kaynes expected to reach commercial volumes within 12 to 24 months.[28]

Partnerships

Design v1 used Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 chip.[24] In May 2023 DigiLens said it would bring Qualcomm's Snapdragon Spaces XR developer platform to ARGO, which uses the Snapdragon XR2 platform and Qualcomm's FastConnect 6900 connectivity system.[11]

In June 2024 DigiLens signed a memorandum of understanding with Consolidated Nuclear Security at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the Oak Ridge Enhanced Technology and Training Center leading the work, covering sensor integration, maintenance and repair, and situational awareness for first responders, using ARGO glasses built to military specification around Crystal30 waveguides.[27]

In October 2025 DigiLens launched ARGO Next with the software company Altoura, a program to move enterprise customers from other XR devices, including Microsoft's HoloLens, to ARGO. The announcement noted that Microsoft HoloLens 2 support ends on 31 December 2027.[29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "DigiLens Secures Investment from UDC Ventures and Samsung Ventures for Holographic AR Displays". GlobeNewswire. DigiLens Inc.. 2019-05-14. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/05/14/1823756/0/en/DigiLens-Secures-Investment-from-UDC-Ventures-and-Samsung-Ventures-for-Holographic-AR-Displays.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "DigiLens Unveils Crystal50, the Next Generation of Extended Reality (XR) Lens". DigiLens. 2020-01-08. https://www.digilens.com/digilens-unveils-crystal50-the-next-generation-of-extended-reality-xr-lens-2/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "ARGO Spec Packet v2.2". DigiLens. DigiLens Inc.. 2024. https://www.digilens.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/DigiLens-ARGO-Spec-Packet-v2.2.pdf. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "DigiLens Deepens Partnership With Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation To Accelerate The Distribution Of Plastic Waveguides Across The XR Ecosystem". DigiLens. 2021-07-15. https://www.digilens.com/digilens-deepens-partnership-with-mitsubishi-chemical-corporation-to-accelerate-the-distribution-of-plastic-waveguides-across-the-xr-ecosystem/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Ben Lang (2021-08-10). "Switchable Waveguide from DigiLens Claims to Double the Resolution of XR Glasses". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/digilens-t-rex-switchable-waveguide-wobulation-ar-glasses/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  6. ↑ Chinnock, Chris (2019-03-20). "A Tour of the Vuzix Waveguide Factory". Insight Media. https://www.insightmedia.info/a-tour-of-the-vuzix-waveguide-factory/. Retrieved 2025-02-09.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ben Lang (2022-04-07). "Waveguide Maker DigiLens Announces New Investment at $530M Valuation". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/waveguide-digilens-series-d-second-close-valuation/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "SBG Labs acquires DigiLens' optical component patents and trademarks". Lightwave. 2003-10-31. https://www.lightwaveonline.com/business/article/16657261/sbg-labs-acquires-digilens-optical-component-patents-and-trademarks. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Jonathan D. Waldern, Alastair J. Grant, Milan Popovich (2018-05-21). "DigiLens switchable Bragg grating waveguide optics for augmented reality applications". Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 10676 (Digital Optics for Immersive Displays). SPIE. doi:10.1117/12.2315719. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2315719. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV8oCUHiJQs
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "DigiLens ARGO to Support Snapdragon Spaces". DigiLens. 2023-05-31. https://www.digilens.com/pr-argo-snapdragon-spaces/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "DigiLens Series D Values the Company at Over $500M with Samsung Electronics Leading the Funding Round". DigiLens. 2021-11-04. https://www.digilens.com/pr-seriesd01/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  13. ↑ "SBG Labs and Rockwell Collins to Develop "Switchable Waveguide" Displays". Inknowvation. 2012-04-12. https://www.inknowvation.com/sbir/story/sbg-labs-and-rockwell-collins-develop-switchable-waveguide-displays. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 "$22M round 'will bring augmented reality optics to market'". optics.org. 2017-01-20. https://optics.org/news/8/1/31. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Woodrow Bellamy III (2018-06-15). "Will Waveguide Become Standard in Future Head-Up Displays?". Avionics International. https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/06/15/will-waveguide-become-standard-future-head-displays/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Scott Hayden (2019-05-15). "Waveguide Maker DigiLens Closes $50 Million Series C Investment". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/continental-increases-stake-waveguide-display-company-digilens-raising-25m-series-c/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 "DigiLens Completes the Second Close of Its Series D Funding Round". DigiLens. 2022-04-07. https://www.digilens.com/pr-seriesd-closed/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "DigiLens Partners with Avegant for Next-Gen AI Smartglasses". DigiLens. 2024-09-04. https://www.digilens.com/pr-avegantc304th/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  19. ↑ "Dr. Jonathan Waldern Joins Metamaterial as Chief Technology Officer". Metamaterial Inc.. 2020-12-17. https://metamaterial.com/dr-jonathan-waldern-joins-metamaterial-as-chief-technology-officer/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Company". DigiLens. https://www.digilens.com/company/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 David Heaney (2021-05-19). "DigiLens Design v1: A Reference For Modern Standalone AR Glasses". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/digilens-design-v1/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  22. ↑ "DigiLens Announces T-REx, Doubling Waveguide Resolution Within Existing Form Factor". DigiLens. 2021-08-10. https://www.digilens.com/press-release-trex-10821/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  23. ↑ Ben Lang (2021-07-15). "DigiLens and Mitsubishi Chemical Ready Low Cost Plastic Waveguide Optics for AR". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/digilens-mitsubishi-plastic-waveguide-ar-optics/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Ben Lang (2021-05-18). "Exclusive Hands-on: DigiLens is Building Modular AR Glasses to Accelerate Consumerization". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/hands-on-digilens-design-v1-ar-glasses-announcement/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "DigiLens Inc. Introduces ARGO". DigiLens. 2023-01-03. https://www.digilens.com/digilens-inc-introduces-argo-2/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  26. ↑ Josef Erl (2023-01-14). "Digilens Argo is a standalone AR headset with voice control". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/digilens-argo-is-a-standalone-ar-headset-with-voice-control/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "XR optics firms to advance waveguides with nuclear and military groups". optics.org. 2024-06-26. https://optics.org/news/15/6/41. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  28. ↑ Prasanth Aby Thomas (2025-10-03). "India joins XR optics race with Kaynes-DigiLens waveguide line". DIGITIMES Asia. https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20251003VL202/xr-optics-kaynes-technology-supply-chain-india.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  29. ↑ "Future-Proof Your XR Strategy: Launch of ARGO Next Program by DigiLens Enables the Shift from Any XR Device to the ARGO Platform". PR Newswire. DigiLens Inc.. 2025-10-07. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/future-proof-your-xr-strategy-launch-of-argo-next-program-by-digilens-enables-the-shift-from-any-xr-device-to-the-argo-platform-302576342.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
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