The Reprise of AR Glasses
A decade ago culture rejected Augmented Reality glasses, but things are changing. What happened and what's the likely future for AR glasses?
In April of 2013 to much fanfare, Google launched the public beta of its Augmented Reality glasses called Glass. They cost $1,500 and were mostly aimed at developers to build apps and tools for use with the platform. They flopped in the consumer market. They’ve held steady in the professional market. AR glasses are again having a moment. They may well stick this time.
So why did the first AR glasses by Google flop? Why and how did they become of interest again and what might this mean in a sociocultural context? Why is this important?
It wasn’t long after Google Glass came out that people who wore them in public were quickly labeled as “Glassholes.” To wear them was to be a sort of social outcast. Culture it seems, was not amused.
Yet Glass did survive. In a niche space. They’re still being used today. A doctor performed surgery with Glasses in Jaipur, India. And as humans like to do silly things with technology, one woman was issued a ticket in California for driving wearing Google Glass. Movie stars and rock icons wore them on stage and to publicity events. Still, they failed to capture consumer appeal. Why?
My theory, as a digital anthropologist who’s brought a number of technology products to market, is that the design was too futuristic, too obvious and no one really saw the value. How a product is designed is always critical. Many tech companies assume that consumers want a new technology product to look futuristic. This is rarely, if ever the case.
The rapid rejection of Google Glass was a sociocultural reaction. I proposed then that Glass would flop in the consumer market and succeed in niche markets. This has been the case. The more familiar with a related past technology a new product can be, the better.
There is a reason that car designs often evolve over many years. Apple succeeds with people updating the macOS and iOS software because unlike Windows, the changes are gradual. Microsoft has largely learned this lesson. Too radical a design departure or to out of cultural alignment and a technology will be rejected.
But now, AR glasses are starting to push into the consumer market again and are being met with better reception. And the thing is, they could very well be a critical bridge between engaging with our digital and physical worlds. What’s happening?
The Reprise of Augment Reality Glasses
Laptops, desktops, tablets, phones and VR headsets are all distinct devices that act as intermediaries between our physical and digital worlds. They have certain affordances which place restrictions on how, where, when and why we engage with the digital world. Even AR glasses and VR headsets have affordances.
Being fully immersed into the digital world comes closest when we use Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, but there too, are limitations. Our physical ability to wear VR headsets for extended periods, limitations of apps and services and our brain’s ability to process such an environment.
So why are AR glasses seeing a revival? The first company to launch a more consumer acceptable AR glass was social media platform Snap. They’ve been successful enough that they now offer a few different designs and are on their 4th generation.
The reason they were more successful is that Snap understood the importance of design. The first iteration with Ray-Ban were very much designed to look like regular sunglasses. Snap went so far in 2016 as to declare itself a camera company. Sales haven’t been massive, but they are on the uptick. The newest version looks a little more cyberpunk.
Initial features were limited too, just taking pictures and mostly for posting to the Snap platform. They’re evolving however, with more features and functionality. Snap took a human first approach to designing their AR glasses. It’s worked.
There are more consumers using AR glasses today than a decade ago, largely because some companies just kept at it, seeing a future of opportunity. Meta launched their version in 2023, again with Ray-Ban and then of course there’s Apple’s XR headset, but they’re not really AR glasses.
The Future of Augmented Reality Glasses
While it’s impossible to predict an exact economic outcome for AR glasses, they’re beginning to find their place in society and culture is slowly becoming more comfortable with them. Given price points and where AR glasses fit in terms of consumer preferences and priorities for emerging technologies, they’re still a ways of from being a go-to technology like phones.
As expected, even market analyst numbers vary widely. Some suggest the market is worth US$113.9 Million, while others say it’s at USD$143 Million to grow to USD$883 Million by 2025. Another research house says the market is currently about USD$340 Million but of course, will be worth well over USD$1.5 Billion by 2050. That’s a wide range of estimates.
The reality is they’ll likely end up somewhere along that line in the middle. AR glasses in niche applications such as manufacturing, engineering, medical uses and military will probably see the most growth.
For consumers, it’s all about where they find value and this is where AR glasses have struggled. Snap has focused on the visual side with images and video as has Meta. Both have hopes this will increase engagement on their social media platforms but this is unlikely. Public sharing on social media platforms is changing. People are sharing within smaller groups, but that too, is opportunity.
There are arguments about privacy, but the issues with AR glasses are similar to those with smartphones and privacy regulations coming in across multiple jurisdictions will deal with these issues.
In the end, how successful AR glasses are will come down to consumers and the platforms that are3 turly human-centric in their product designs are likely to win in the longer term. Tech companies that simply build AR glasses to drive use of their primary platform will struggle. What may help some is interesting uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as language translation and turning information into insights.
Broader acceptance is likely to come through people using them in specific settings for specialized reasons. Thus a slow, but steady integration into popular culture and society.
For now, the consumer trend is moving towards less public sharing and seeking to minimize technology use. This presents some challenges. But there are some fascinating ways we can use AR in our daily lives.