Meta's plan is working: Augmented reality is back
After years of relative quiet, a new race for augmented reality glasses has begun, involving all the major tech players.
Until recently, things looked bleak for augmented reality.
Microsoft had given up on Hololens long before the category was officially discontinued, and Magic Leap announced a pivot away from selling headsets. To outsiders, it looked like AR headsets were going to die, and AR glasses were going to go down as vaporware in the annals of technology history.
But the same year also saw success stories. Meta scored a hit with its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, creating hype around a new category of devices that the tech press dubbed AI glasses. And in September, the company unveiled the Orion prototype, a pair of full-fledged AR glasses that weigh less than 100 grams and offer a 70-degree field of view.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, Meta plans to release a more advanced and lighter version of this prototype in 2027. And Oakley-branded AI glasses with Oakley and a pair of smart glasses with a heads-up display are reportedly slated for release this year. As you can see: Meta has ambitious plans that go far beyond clunky mixed reality headsets.
Augmented reality is back in the spotlight
The surprising success of the Ray-Ban smart glasses and the positive reports about the Orion prototype must have stirred up Meta's competitors to some extent.
In an interview with Bloomberg last week, the head of Samsung's mobile division TM Roh confirmed that Samsung and Google are working together on an AR glasses. It was already known that the two partners were developing smart glasses with AI features similar to the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
What about Apple? In early 2023, Bloomberg reported that Apple had pared back its work on AR glasses and delayed its rollout indefinitely. But a few days ago, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman revealed that Apple is continuing to research displays specifically for AR glasses, developing a version of visionOS that can run on AR glasses, and is exploring a competitor to Ray-Ban's Meta Smart Glasses.
It's clear that smart glasses and AR glasses are back on the minds of the big tech companies, and that the technology will continue to grow in importance in the coming years as Meta prepares to launch future products.
This is good news for Meta because the more companies researching and competing in this technology, the more likely technological breakthroughs are. For many years, Meta was the only investor in VR, but with Apple Vision Pro and the upcoming Project Moohan, those days seem to be over, too.
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