There’s a race to replace our iPhones with smart glasses we wear everywhere
There’s a race to replace our iPhones with smart glasses we wear
everywhere
KEY
POINTS
- The next big trend in technology
will be smart glasses we wear everywhere.
- Microsoft, Snap, Facebook, Google,
Apple and Amazon are all working on computers we wear on our faces that
may replace our phones.
- Current devices are too big and expensive, but eventually they’ll come down in price and size
Most of the biggest names in Big Tech are
racing to create smart glasses that we wear everywhere and that may replace our
phones.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Snap, Facebook
Apple, Magic Leap and others are all working on some form of smart glasses or
headset that will change how we view the world around us. Instead of pulling a
phone out of our pockets to talk to people or interact with apps, we may do these
things simply by speaking to, and looking through, a set of glasses.
There’s a race to be the first to make a set of
glasses that everyone will wear, which means they have to be fashionable and
sleek enough to wear all day and everywhere you go. Advocates of the technology
hope that you’ll one day be able to replace every screen in your life with just
one pair of smart glasses.
If glasses replace common gadgets like our
phones or computer screens, it will mean big business to the company that comes
out on top.
But we’re likely years away from that. Today,
most AR headsets are too big, too expensive and simply too weird-looking to
make sense for everyday use. That’s not keeping tech companies from trying
though.
Here’s where everyone stands right now.
Microsoft
Microsoft launches HoloLens 2 at Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona
CNBC
Microsoft is working on advanced
augmented reality products. Its HoloLens 2 headset went on sale last week and a
modified version is being tested by the Army to make soldiers more effective on
the battlefield.
Called IVAS, the Army’s version can
overlay images like the positions of fellow soldiers and the
enemy over the vision of the soldiers who wear the HoloLens headsets. And
soldiers can use it for training to see how they performed during battle
simulations.
It has commercial uses, too. HoloLens 2 is
capable of displaying computer programs over your vision so you don’t always
have to sit at a computer to do work. It can help workers in the field identify
problems and make fixes without digging through manuals.
The HoloLens 2 is too big and at $3,500 too
expensive for most consumers. But as technology progresses, these devices will
only get smaller and more powerful.
Snap
Snap’s Spectacles 3 glasses,
which go on sale this week for $380, let users snap pictures and videos of the
world around them and then add augmented reality effects to those clips inside
the Snapchat app.
You can’t currently see any information through
the glasses themselves, but the company is reportedly working toward adding
augmented reality into the frames. The Information’s report on Monday said Snap
is building a “fourth-generation version of its Spectacles camera glasses,
code-named Hermosa, with smart lenses capable of showing AR effects.”
Snap’s strategy has been different than those
of Microsoft, Facebook and Magic Leap. It starts with
glasses and plans to add a computer system later. The other companies have
bulkier headsets with computers but haven’t sold glasses yet.
Google
Google still sells its Google Glass
product, which shows information, but not 3D augmented reality, to wearers. The
original version, aimed at consumers, may have come too soon.
People didn’t like that wearers of Google Glass
were able to record them at any time, and Google eventually killed that model
and focused on business use.
Google is still investing in the space and most recently launched a new version in
May for commercial uses. Google’s Android platform on phones now supports
augmented reality apps, too, which means it’s building a library of
applications that could one day be used in more advanced versions of Google
Glass.
Google Maps on Android and iPhone already has
features that would be much more useful on a set of glasses, too. An augmented
reality feature that rolled out in May overlays information, including walking directions,
on top of the real world. It can show you which way to walk, when to take a
turn and even when you’ve arrived at your destination when you hold up your
phone.
While Google hasn’t publicly talked about new
AR glasses yet, it’s obvious the company is building a foundation where AR
makes more sense on our heads instead of on a phone.
Magic
Leap
Magic Leap’s first headset launched in August
2018 and, like Microsoft HoloLens 2, is a relatively
bulky headset that’s capable of showing games, 3D animations, virtual video
screens and more, all in a digital world around you.
You can still see everywhere you walk, and
anyone you’re talking to, but AR applications let you watch TV, work in computer
programs and more, all while still seeing the normal world.
But like HoloLens 2, Magic Leap is expensive,
with a starting price of $2,295. The company will need to make its product
smaller and more affordable if it plans to attract a wide audience, and it will
need to add more capabilities and applications. Apple’s iOS and Android already
offer thousands of augmented reality apps for phones, which could easily land
on headsets if and when they launch.
Apple
Apple’s headset is reportedly set to launch in
2022, but the first model is the size of Facebook’s Oculus Quest virtual
reality headset, according to The Information. But a
smaller glasses-size version that it says is due to launch in 2023 may be more
attractive to people, since that form factor will allow it to be worn all day
instead of around the house.
Like Google, Apple’s iOS platform is already
home to thousands of augmented reality apps. Apple probably added AR support to
its iPhones and iPads in an effort to teach people more about the technology
and show them how games and information will work once they’re overlaid in
front of our faces. And like Google’s, this strategy helps it build a library
of apps that would work on a future set of glasses.
Siri already works with wearable products like
the AirPods and Apple Watch, allowing users to ask it for turn-by-turn
directions, to play music and to transcribe messages all without picking up a
phone. Those functions could all work on a set of smart glasses.
Facebook
Facebook’s strategy is
different than almost everyone else’s. It currently sells virtual reality
products that take you out of the real world and into a digital realm where you
can’t see anything around you. But Facebook is also interested in augmented
reality.
CNBC reported in September that Facebook has partnered with Ray-Ban
parent company Luxottica to develop augmented reality glasses. It
plans to launch the wearable, internally called Orion, between 2023 and 2025.
They’re designed to take calls and let users stream video to other people.
Hundreds of people are working on them. One area Facebook has struggled,
however, is in getting them small enough for consumers to find appealing.
Like Apple, Facebook has an existing
communications platform that could translate easily to a pair of glasses on our
heads. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp allow users to call or chat with one
another, for example, and Facebook’s Portal products enable video chat across
platforms.
Facebook already has developer tools for
augmented reality, called Spark AR. Right now, it’s used for face tracking and
effects inside video chats on Portal hardware but could
theoretically be used one day on a set of smart glasses. And Facebook has a
huge user base that includes 2.45 billion monthly active users who may
be interested in smart glasses if it can sell them at an affordable price.
Amazon
Amazon hasn’t talked much about its own
set of augmented reality glasses, but in September it announced a pair that
show it’s interested in the space. The Echo Frames are currently just a
set of regular glasses, but with a speaker and the Amazon voice
assistant Alexa built in.
A user can speak to Alexa anytime. It can tell
you the weather, place phone calls, give you a news briefing or anything else
that an Amazon Echo can do, just on your head. Amazon could improve these
glasses by adding AR, but it would need to add screens that help display that
information in front of you.
Amazon also has a lot of services that could
easily apply to AR glasses. Prime Video could show movies and TV shows through
a set of future Echo Frames if Amazon decides to build such a pair, for
example. Or a user might shop through Amazon and browse through goods without
ever pulling out a phone.
Years away
Amazon, Google, Magic Leap, Facebook and
Microsoft all have foundations in place to create computers that we wear on our
faces. Now the race is on for getting there first and for selling them to
consumers at affordable prices that make them must-have products.
We may still be years away from this happening,
but the apps, smart voice assistants and software are already in place. Once
these companies can make the computers small enough, we may not carry phones
everywhere, since our glasses will be able to do just about everything.
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