Computer on Your Face? Snap and Others Still Trying to Make AR Glasses a Reality

In its constant search for ways to weave digital products into people’s lives, Big Tech has notched up some big wins. Smartphones are ubiquitous. Apple Watch users talk to their wrists. AI-powered assistants are everywhere.

But convincing people to wear computers on their faces has been a failure. At least until now.

Augmented reality glasses overlay digital images onto a person’s view of the physical world. They differ from virtual reality headsets, which completely immerse people in a computer-generated environment.

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

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

“Making augmented reality glasses is really hard. And we know the industry is full of companies that have tried, and we’ve been working on them for a really long time,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said from the stage at a conference Tuesday, unveiling the glasses.

Other industry giants, including Google and Samsung, are also working on smart glasses, and Apple is exploring the idea. The competition is raising the stakes for publicly traded Snap as it looks for new products to help it re-establish itself in the tech world, while rivals like Instagram and TikTok have surged ahead of it to grab attention and dominate the market.

But the future in which augmented reality glasses become part of our daily lives is not yet here, and there is still 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 that studies immersive technologies, including AR. “We need an ecosystem of not just hardware and software, but also content that works together to create seamless experiences.”

Snap first released smart glasses that could record video in 2016, selling them in 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 low demand for the gadget resulted in hundreds of thousands of pairs going unsold.

Snap’s latest glasses, called Spectacles, overlay computer-generated images onto the physical world. The new device builds on the first AR glasses Snap made available to developers in 2021. Snap doesn’t sell them to the public but makes them available to developers in hopes they’ll design experiences for the platform.

The possibilities offered by using AR glasses remain limited.

Snap glasses can track human hand movements, allowing users to pick up and put together virtual Lego bricks, swing a phantom golf club, draw with friends and enter numbers on a digital calculator.

It also includes artificial intelligence features that allow users to get answers to questions and trigger images using voice commands.

In an effort to drum up interest, Snap has focused on innovative apps and games that it knows users are already accustomed to, said Ben Bajarin, CEO and principal analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm that works with technology companies.

However, Snap is still cautious when releasing new AR glasses.

“We can’t predict how it’s going to be received by consumers, so we’re being more deliberate about how we deliver this version,” said Sophia Dominguez, director of AR platform at Snap. “That could change at any point, and if it does… we’re ready.”

Dominguez said the company envisions AR glasses one day becoming a primary way to access the digital world.

Instead of computer or phone screens, AR glasses will allow people to have one foot in each world at the same time, she said, making it “easier to interact with technology in the same way you interact with the real world.”

There are big doubts as to whether AR glasses will make this possible.

Wearing AR glasses can disrupt the way people interact in the real world, making them feel less present, says Jeremy Bailenson, a professor at Stanford University and founder of the school’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.

“Wearing glasses that connect you to digital content, whether it’s AR or VR, should be reserved for special experiences,” he said. “I’m not a proponent of blocking your perceptual system, your vision and hearing, for the purpose of constant surveillance.”

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

The researchers, who were accompanied by a supervisor for safety reasons, wore Meta headsets while talking to people, walking around campus and cooking food.

Researchers found that people in the physical world felt less real, as if they were watching television, than talking to someone face to face.

Bailenson said people wearing AR glasses will see the world differently than those not wearing the devices, and the loss of this “shared point of view” will likely affect the way people socialize.

Previous attempts to integrate smart glasses into people’s daily lives have failed.

When Google launched smart glasses in 2013 that could take photos and record videos, concerns about privacy and security arose among consumers, lawmakers and businesses.

People began calling Google Glass owners who used their smart glasses in socially unacceptable ways “glassholes.” Social taboos included discreetly recording others and reading on the device while seemingly ignoring others.

While AR glasses could prove useful in a variety of areas, including training, education, shopping and gaming, industry analysts say convincing consumers to use the devices will be difficult.

“Our eyes are very valuable real estate,” said Bajarin, who tried out Snap’s AR glasses ahead of their conference. “Consumers are going to guard them very, very closely.”

Keeping the price low enough to encourage people to buy will also be a challenge.

Meta, which 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 did not say how much its newest glasses will cost when they become available to the general public.

Snap Glasses are still in development.

They’re heavier than regular glasses, they get uncomfortably hot after prolonged use, and the battery life is less than an hour.

They require hand movements, such as reaching for digital items in the air or touching the front and back of your hand to adjust the volume or launch a menu.

The device runs on Snap’s proprietary operating system, which gives the company greater control over its operation.

During a recent demonstration of AR glasses at a San Francisco home, a Times reporter used voice commands to create images that appeared almost instantly — a robot dog, Elsa from Frozen and the San Francisco skyline.

During another activity, a yellow creature with wide eyes appeared and then walked outside to a real terrace in San Francisco, which had a stunning view of the city.

Niantic, the creator of the Pokemon Go augmented reality game, has created a “Peridot Beyond” experience for Snap’s augmented reality glasses.

Asim Ahmed, head of 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 mobile game might not work in AR glasses, which offer a wider field of view and don’t rely as much on your hands during gameplay. Niantic also had to think about safety issues, including making sure the virtual pet doesn’t get too close to its owner and block their view.

Analysts predict it will be at least a few years before smart glasses become widespread, if they ever manage to overcome numerous challenges, including finding a way to fit computing power and other computer components into a device smaller than a smartphone.

According to market analysis firm IDC, shipments of VR and AR headsets fell 67.4% year over year in the first quarter of 2024, but are expected to grow as consumers move to new types of devices. Meta led the market, followed by ByteDance, Xreal and HTC.

Analysts say that because companies are still testing AR glasses or developing them, there is no clear favorite 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, which owns 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 my money more on Meta as having the key (research and development) capabilities to really bring this to market,” Bourne said. “But I wouldn’t rule out Snap at all.”