In the relentless search for ways to weave digital products into people’s lives, Big Tech has achieved some big wins. Smart phones are everywhere. Apple Watch users talk to their wrists. Artificial intelligence-powered assistants are everywhere.
But convincing people to wear a computer on their face is stupid. Until now, at least.
Augmented reality glasses overlay digital images onto a person’s view of the physical world. They differ from virtual reality headsets that immerse people in a computer-generated environment.
The tech giant has focused the last decade on developing glasses that project digital screens in front of the user’s eyes. The fact that they’ve so far failed to convince people to wear smart glasses every day hasn’t stopped Google and other companies from following the money as they pursue the belief that hardware can reinvent how people socialize, work and learn.
While dwarfed by Silicon Valley behemoths in the north, Snap, the Los Angeles-based company behind the messaging app lost Snapchat competitors in this smart glasses arm race. The company, which unveiled its fifth set of AR glasses at its annual conference Tuesday, hopes the device’s improvements will spur mass consumer adoption.
“Making augmented reality glasses is difficult. And we know that the industry is full of companies that have tried and we have been working for a long time on this,” said Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel, Tuesday from the stage at the conference when he opened the glasses.
Other industry giants included Google and Samsung also used in smart glasses, and Apple they are exploring ideas. The competition has boosted shares for publicly traded Snap as it looks for new products to help reassert itself in the tech world as rivals such as Instagram and TikTok have passed for eyeballs and market dominance.
But the future in which augmented reality glasses are part of everyday life is yet to come and there is still a long way to go, experts say. The future of smart glasses is still bleak.
“This is a marathon. It’s not a sprint,” said Tuong Huy Nguyen, an analyst at Gartner who is part of a team that researches immersive technologies including AR. “We need an ecosystem of not only hardware and software but content that we can use to create a seamless experience.”
The first snap is released smart glasses who could record the video in 2016, sold it in a vending machine in Los Angeles before it was available online. The company reported selling 150,000 pairs, but most people stopped short use them after a month and underwhelming demand for gadgets producing hundreds of thousands of unsold pairs.
Dubbed Spectacles, Snap’s latest glasses overlay computer-generated images onto a view of the physical world. The new device built on the first AR glasses Snap released to software developers in 2021. Snap is not selling them to the public, but has made it available to software developers in the hope that they will design experiances for the platform.
Augmented reality glasses from Los Angeles-based technology company Snap Inc.
(Snap Inc.)
What people can do with AR glasses remains limited. Snap Glasses can track people’s hands, allow users to pick up and assemble virtual Legos, swing a phantom golf club, draw with friends and number strokes on a digital calculator. It also incorporates several artificial intelligence features that allow users to get answers to questions and create images with voice commands.
In an effort to attract interest, Snap has leaned toward quirky apps and gaming experiences that users are familiar with, said Ben Bajarin, chief executive and principal analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm that works with tech companies.
But Snap is still cautious as it releases new AR glasses.
“What we can’t predict is consumer adoption and that’s why we’re taking a more thoughtful approach to how we release this version,” said Sophia Dominguez, Snap AR Platform director. “That could change at any time, and if it does … we’re ready to go.”
Dominguez said the company thinks AR glasses will become the main way people access the digital world. Instead of a computer or phone screen, AR glasses, he says, will allow people to keep walking in each world simultaneously, so “it’s easy for you to interact with technology the same way you interact with the real world.”
Skepticism about whether AR glasses will make this possible is high.
Donning AR glasses can disrupt how people socialize in the physical world, making them feel less present, said Jeremy Bailenson, a Stanford University professor who founded the College’s virtual human interaction lab.
“Using glasses that connect you to digital content, whether it’s AR or VR should be done sparingly for a special experience,” he said. “I am not an advocate of blocking the system of perception, sight and sound for continuous surveillance.”
Bailenson and other Stanford researchers tested the Meta Quest 3, a “mixed reality” headset that allows people to blend the physical and virtual worlds. While headsets differ from AR glasses, gadgets can display real-time video of the user’s environment in the physical world.
The researcher, accompanied by a companion for safety reasons, wears the Meta headset while talking to people, walking around the campus and cooking food. They report that people in the physical world feel less real, as if they are watching television rather than interacting with others.
People who wear AR glasses will also see a different view of the world than people who don’t wear the devices and losing that “common ground” will affect how they socialize, Bailenson said.
Previous attempts to integrate smart glasses into people’s lives have not been successful. When Google released smart glasses in 2013 that could take photos, videos, they raised privacy and safety concerns from consumers, lawmakers and business owners. People are starting to call Google Glass owners who use their smart glasses in socially unacceptable ways “glass holes.” Among the social no-nos: Surreptitiously recording others and reading on the device while apparently ignoring others.
And while AR glasses have the potential to be helpful in several arenas, including training, education, shopping and gaming, industry analysts say it will be difficult to convince consumers to embrace the device.
“Our eyes are precious real estate,” said Bajarin, who tested Snap’s AR glasses before the conference. “Consumers are going to be very, very protective.”
Keeping the price low enough to entice people to buy will also be a challenge. Meta, which partnered with Ray Ban on a pair of smart glasses that allow people to take photos, listen to music and make video calls with the help of an AI assistant, sells the device for around $300. Snap hasn’t said what it will charge for its latest glasses when they become available to the public.
Snap Glasses keep working. They are heavier than regular glasses, heat to an uncomfortable level after full use and battery life of an hour. They require foreign hand movements, such as reaching to pinch a digital object in the air and tapping the front and back of the hand to adjust the volume or open a menu.
The device is powered by Snap’s own operating system, giving the company more control over the experience. During a recent preview of AR glasses held at a San Francisco home, a Times reporter used voice commands to create images that appeared almost instantly – a robotic dog, Elsa from Frozen and the San Francisco sky.
In another activity, a large, yellow creature is seen before going out onto a real San Francisco terrace with a stunning view of the city. Niantic, maker of AR game Pokemon Go, is creating a “Peridot Beyond” experience for AR Snap glasses.
Asim Ahmed, who leads global marketing at Niantic, said AR glasses give the company the opportunity to experiment and design “a new paradigm of gameplay.” What works in games played on mobile phones may not work in AR glasses, which offer a wider view and don’t rely on hands to play. Niantic also has to think about safety issues, including making sure that the virtual pet is not close to its owner and blocking the view.
With multiple challenges, including figuring out how to cram processing power and other computing hardware into devices smaller than smartphones, analysts predict it will take several years at most before smart glasses gain mainstream adoption, if ever.
In the first quarter of 2024, shipments of VR and AR headsets fell 67.4% year-on-year, but are expected to improve as consumers move to new types of devices, according to the market intelligence firm. IDC. Meta leads the market, followed by ByteDance, Xreal and HTC.
With companies still testing AR glasses or developing them, a clear candidate has yet to emerge, analysts said.
Jacob Bourne, an analyst at eMarketer, Snap’s competitors, including Meta and Google, have more money to invest in research and development of AR glasses. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has 3.27 billion people using one of its apps every day. Snapchat has 432 million daily active users.
“I would probably put more money into Meta because it has the key (research and development) capabilities to get to market,” Bourne said. “But I’m not going to order Snap out.”
