Computer on your face? Snap and others are still trying to make AR glasses a reality

In its relentless search for ways to weave digital products into people’s lives, Big Tech has achieved some big wins. Smartphones are ubiquitous. Apple Watch users talk to their wrists. Artificial intelligence assistants are everywhere.

But convincing people to wear computers on their faces turned out to be a failure. At least for now.

Augmented reality glasses superimpose digital images on top of the physical world. They differ from virtual reality headsets, which completely immerse people in a computer-generated environment.

Over the past decade, tech giants have focused on developing glasses that project digital screens in front of the wearer’s eyes. The fact that they have so far failed to convince people to wear smart glasses every day hasn’t stopped Google and other companies from pouring money into the effort in the name of the belief that the hardware could one day change the way people socialize, they work and learn.

Overshadowed by Silicon Valley giants to the north, Snap, the Los Angeles-based company behind the disappearing messaging app Snapchat, is engaged in a smart glasses arms race. The company, which unveiled the fifth version of its AR glasses at its annual conference on Tuesday, hopes improvements to the device will lead to mass consumer adoption.

“Making augmented reality glasses is really difficult. We know there are a lot of companies in the industry that have tried to do this, and we’ve been working on them for a really long time,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said from the conference stage on Tuesday, showing off the glasses.

Other industry giants, including Google and Samsung, are also working on smart glasses, and Apple is exploring the idea. Competition is upping the ante for publicly traded Snap, seeking new products to help it cement itself in the tech world as rivals like Instagram and TikTok have overtaken it to turn heads and dominate the market.

However, the future in which augmented reality glasses will be part of our everyday lives is not yet here and we still have a long way to go, experts say. The future of smart glasses is still unclear.

“It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint,” said Tuong Huy Nguyen, an analyst at Gartner who is part of a team researching immersive technologies, including AR. “We need an ecosystem of not only hardware and software, but also content that works together to deliver seamless experiences.”

Snap first released video-capable smart glasses in 2016, selling them at vending machines in Los Angeles before making them available online. The company reported selling 150,000 pairs, but most people stopped using them after a month, and unsatisfactory demand for the gadget resulted in hundreds of thousands of pairs unsold.

Snap’s newest glasses, called Spectacles, overlay computer-generated images onto the way you see the physical world. The new device is based on the first AR glasses that Snap made available to developers in 2021. Snap isn’t selling them publicly, but is making them available to software developers in hopes that they will design experiences for the platform.

What people can do with AR glasses remains limited. Snap Glasses can track a person’s hands, so users can pick up and assemble virtual Lego bricks, swing a phantom golf club, draw with friends, and type numbers in a digital calculator. It also includes some artificial intelligence features that allow users to get answers to questions and conjure up an image using a voice command.

In an attempt to generate interest, Snap is relying on quirky apps and games that users are accustomed to, said Ben Bajarin, CEO and chief analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm that works with technology companies.

However, Snap continues to err on the side of caution as it releases new AR glasses.

“We can’t predict whether it will be adopted by consumers, so we’re taking a more thoughtful approach to releasing this version,” said Sophia Dominguez, Snap’s director of AR platform. “It could change at any time, and if it does change… we’re ready.”

Dominguez said the company anticipates that AR glasses will one day become the primary way people access the digital world. Instead of computer or phone screens, AR glasses will allow people to have one foot in each world at once, making it “easier to interact with technology in the same way you interact with the real world.”

Skepticism is high whether AR glasses will make this possible.

Putting on AR glasses can disrupt people’s social interactions in the physical world, making them feel less present, said Jeremy Bailenson, a Stanford University professor who founded the university’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.

“Wearing glasses to access digital content, whether AR or VR, should be worn sparingly to ensure a unique experience,” he said. “I am not in favor of blocking the perceptual system, sight and sound for the purpose of constant surveillance.”

Bailenson and other Stanford researchers tested Meta Quest 3, a “mixed reality” headset that allows people to combine the physical and virtual worlds. While the headset is different from AR glasses, the gadget can display real-time video of the user’s surroundings in the physical world.

Researchers, accompanied by a chaperone for safety reasons, wore Meta headsets while talking to people, walking around campus, and cooking meals. They reported that people in the physical world felt less real, as if they were watching television rather than interacting with someone face-to-face.

People wearing AR glasses will also see a different view of the world than people who don’t wear the devices, and the loss of “common ground” will likely impact the way people communicate, Bailenson said.

Previous attempts to incorporate smart glasses into people’s lives have failed. When Google released smart glasses that could take photos and record videos in 2013, it raised concerns about privacy and security among consumers, lawmakers and business owners. People began calling Google Glass owners who used smart glasses in socially unacceptable ways “glass holes.” Among the social prohibitions: secretly recording others and reading on the device, seemingly ignoring others.

And while AR glasses can be helpful in several areas, including training, education, shopping and gaming, industry analysts say it will be difficult to convince consumers to use the devices.

“Our eyes are very valuable real estate,” said Bajarin, who tried out AR Snap glasses before the conference. “Consumers will be watching this very, very closely.”

Keeping the price low enough to encourage people to buy will also be a challenge. Meta, which has partnered with Ray Ban to create smart glasses that let you take photos, listen to music and make video calls with the help of an AI assistant, is selling its device for about $300. Snap hasn’t revealed how much it will charge for its latest glasses if they become available to the public.

Work on Snap glasses is still ongoing. They’re heavier than regular glasses, heat up to an uncomfortable degree after prolonged use, and have a battery life of less than an hour. They require alien hand movements, such as reaching out to pinch digital objects in the air and tapping the front and back of the hand to adjust the volume or launch a menu.

The device runs on Snap’s own operating system, giving the company more control over the experience. At a recent demonstration of AR glasses kept at home in San Francisco, a Los Angeles Times reporter used voice commands to create images that appeared almost instantly – robot dog Elsa with Frozen and the San Francisco skyline.

In another action, a wide-eyed yellow creature appeared and then went outside to a real patio in San Francisco, with a great view of the city. Niantic, the creator of the AR game Pokemon Go, has created the “Peridot Beyond” experience for Snap’s AR glasses.

Asim Ahmed, who heads global marketing at Niantic, said AR glasses give the company the ability to experiment and design a “new kind of gameplay paradigm.” What works in a game played on a mobile phone may not work in AR glasses, which offer a wider field of view and do not require as much use of your hands while playing. Niantic also had to think about security issues, including: to ensure that the virtual pet does not get too close to the owner and does not block his view.

Facing a number of challenges, including finding a way to jam processing power and other computing hardware into a device smaller than a smartphone, analysts predict it will be at least several years before smart glasses are adopted by the mainstream, if they do at all.

According to market research firm IDC, shipments of VR and AR headsets fell 67.4% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024, but are expected to increase as consumers shift to new types of devices. Meta was the market leader, followed by ByteDance, Xreal and HTC.

Analysts say companies are still testing or developing AR glasses, so no clear leader has emerged yet.

Jacob Bourne, an analyst at eMarketer, said Snap’s rivals, including Meta and Google, have more money to invest in AR glasses research and development. Meta, the owner of 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 on Meta as having the key to the (research and development) capabilities that will really bring this to market,” Bourne said. “But I wouldn’t rule out a snap out at all.” – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service