I recently wrote about the Rise of Wearable Face Computers where I explore the role of smart glasses and how they may impact the wearable computing space in the new year.
However, these glasses may play a more significant role in making augmented reality an important stepping stone toward broadening the consumer market’s interest and acceptance of spatial computing.
When it comes out early next year, Apple’s Vision Pro headset will deliver the most definitive experience in spatial computing in 2024. However, its $3500 price tag and limited availability due to manufacturing constraints will mean that only a select group can buy and experience what it offers.
However, as I pointed out in my recent column about “face computers,” we are seeing a strong interest in lower-cost smart glasses that deliver various wearable experiences. These smart glasses will be an essential part of laying the groundwork for more people to eventually buy into the importance of face computers as they evolve in design and functionality and have more AR/XR capabilities.
One interesting twist is that I expected Apple to start its spatial computer journey at this lower end of the wearable face computing market. Instead, they went for a moonshot and delivered a headset with rich features and functions that will become the poster child that all face computing products will desire to strive for over time.
However, while Apple’s Vision Pro will draw interest from industry professionals, developers, content creators, and early adopters, most cannot afford to join the Vision Pro bandwagon. Instead, many will look for other ways to become familiar with smart glasses to try and experience spatial computing even in its most basic form and functionality.
Products like the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer glasses, with its embedded cameras and new AI chat features, are an excellent low-cost starting point for many to get used to the face computing experience for a relatively low cost. The clear lens model is available for $299.
Other options are the smart glasses from Rokid Max AR glasses, the XREAL Air 2, and Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 Smart Glasses among others, that deliver various visual experiences. To be clear these smart glasses are not true AR glasses. These currently do not display virtual information in real time.
One prominent feature that has caused them to receive so much interest, especially from gamers and early adopters, is their ability to deliver an extensive viewing screen experience for the users. This feature is desirable to gamers who can connect these glasses to a PC or a handheld game device like the Nintendo Switch. Using these smart glasses, they can play games on what looks like an 80-inch screen. When connected to a PC or laptop, it turns a person’s display into a very large virtual screen where one can view media and use it for productivity or any task that they would use a PC for daily.
But one thing to understand about these early smart glasses is that they are all based on some form of OS and can be upgraded at the software level to include more AR features over time eventually. New AR glasses will have better optics, higher-resolution cameras, more processing power, and robust operating systems, making them even smarter.
Although Apple is delivering the best experience in XR and spatial computing today, at this stage, it is still to be determined if this product, even if it gets smaller and cheaper, will ever become a mass consumer product.
On the other hand, AR glasses, especially ones that include cameras, smarter AR software, and features, may emerge as the most consumer-acceptable face computer. These smart glasses could become the mass-market XR/AR glasses in our spatial computing future.
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