Facebook-owner, Meta, and Snap, the company behind Snapchat, are both reportedly set to unveil new AR (augmented reality) glasses in September 2024, leading tech industry-watchers to again consider whether the devices will ever have a route into mainstream consumer use.
According to The Verge’s Alex Heath, who has a strong record of tech scoops, Snap will unveil the fifth generation of its Spectacles AR glasses device on September 17, 2024. Meta is expected to unveil its AR glasses — developed for at least eight years under the codename Orion — on September 25 at the Meta Connect 24 event.
Both devices are expected to be produced in small numbers and for developers only, with no plans to take them to market, suggesting it won’t be this generation that achieves (or even aims for) mainstream success.
AR glasses—most notably up to this point, the Google Glass experiments of the mid-2010s—usually resemble normal glasses or sunglasses, but are equipped with displays on the inside of the lenses, plus cameras. Truly immersive AR glasses with high-level computing ability have been difficult to develop for the consumer market, due to the prohibitive costs of fitting high-end technology into a wearable product that doesn’t squash your nose due to its weight.
Snap’s new Spectacles will reportedly improve on the extremely limited 26-degree field of view found on the fourth generation model (pictured at the top of this article). It is also set to offer better battery life than its predecessor, which could only be used for 30 minutes between charges.
The first three generations of Snap’s Spectacles were available to the public, but were just camera-equipped glasses with no digital display, so had no AR functionality. The fourth generation, released way back in 2021, did have a screen and AR functionality, but was only available for developers, just as the new model also seems to be.
Meta currently offers smart glasses devices, made in conjunction with sunglasses company Ray-Ban. The glasses only have camera functionality, but can be used for live-streaming.
According to Heath’s report for The Verge, Meta’s new AR glasses will be limited to a run of 1,000, with the products set to be distributed to developers only. Snap’s fifth generation Spectacles will reportedly be limited to a developer run of 10,000.
Show me the money
Meta has reportedly invested billions of dollars in developing AR glasses, with the company likely to be hoping to eventually have an ‘iPhone moment’ when they become affordable to produce in large quantities, and accepted by the public.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently said that the Orion smart glasses “might be the most advanced [electronics device] that we’ve ever produced as a species”. He added that the devices “were built on a prohibitively expensive technology path”.
Google’s launch of Google Glass smart glasses in 2014 is considered a cautionary tale in the industry, with the public failing to take to the idea of wearing a computer within your glasses. Google Glass was taken off the consumer market the following year, but lived on in various enterprise forms until around 2019.
Still, a decade on, there is cautious optimism in much of the industry that there is a positive future for smart glasses. While Google appeared to pitch Google Glass as a product to wear during everyday life, a concept which many consumers found mildly creepy, a more measured approach for mainstream use could be received better.
Smart glasses in sextech
Smart glasses have great potential for sextech use. Currently passthrough technology – seeing digital objects mixed with the ‘real’ world in your vision – is best achieved using cameras on VR headsets. Smart glasses give the potential for passthrough to show you digital objects over the literal real world, rather than a camera feed.
Mixed reality services such as virtual strip clubs, plus VR porn sites that offer passthrough videos, could theoretically reach new levels of realism through AR glasses.
Smart glasses are also far less weighty and cumbersome to wear than VR headsets, so should be better suited to wear during the act of sex itself – either with a partner or solo.
Admittedly more realistic remote sex, or having super-realistic strippers appearing to bounce up and down on your coffee table, may not have been at the forefront of Mark Zuckerberg’s mind when approving the budget for Orion. But we won’t bet against some of the developers who get hold of the new model having it in the forefront of theirs.
Meanwhile, Meta has reportedly dropped plans to release a Meta Quest Pro 2 mixed reality headset, which the company had been expected to launch in 2027. The headset was expected to be a high-cost rival to the Apple Vision Pro headset.
Given the lacklustre consumer reception to Apple Vision Pro (and its AR features), perhaps other companies might fare better by allowing adult apps and uses of the devices, rather than remaining prudish towards adult topics.
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