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Nov 07, 2024

Why I Think AR Glasses Are the Inevitable Future of the Smartphone

Opinion I was asked recently for my thoughts on Meta’s Orion AR glasses, specifically whether or not such glasses stand a chance of becoming as big as (or replacing) the smartphones in the future. I

Opinion

I was asked recently for my thoughts on Meta’s Orion AR glasses, specifically whether or not such glasses stand a chance of becoming as big as (or replacing) the smartphones in the future.

I was asked for my thoughts recently for a Lifewire article about Meta’s Orion AR glasses and the future they may or may not point at. Only a small snippet of my overall response was used, and in a way that supported the article’s (reasonably) skeptical take on the future of AR glasses. However, considering my position is that I do indeed think AR glasses are the inevitable future of the smartphone—becoming the keystone of our daily digital lives—I think it’s worth sharing my full response on the record.

Q: Everyone owning smartphones is a once-ever glitch of the market, because they are subsidized, and replaced cellphones, which everyone had. Do you think most people will actually buy AR glasses?

Ben: I do believe, like the world’s largest tech companies (Meta, Apple, Google, etc) that AR glasses are the inevitable evolution of the smartphone over the long term. The ‘easy sell’ (if all the other pieces can be worked out) is to imagine if you could do everything you can do on your phone today, except on a magic screen that floats in front of you and can scale to any size you need at any time. So while you’re walking down the street it can be a little window showing you a message, but when you get home it can become a 100 foot cinema screen on your wall.

If you can build a device that can do this (and there’s reason to believe we can’t), then you’ve not only replaced your smartphone… but also replaced your TV. Think about all the other screens in your life beyond your phone and TV: your laptop screen, your desktop monitor, your smartwatch… all of these could be replaced with virtual screens that come from a single device that’s always with you. You can’t fit a 65″ 4K TV in your pocket… but if you’ve got glasses that can replicate that display, you can take it with you literally anywhere you go.

If you’ve had a chance to use Apple Vision Pro, you can clearly see that this idea is more than just a dream. The virtual screens created by Vision Pro are incredibly high quality. For most people, a virtual TV window in Vision Pro is higher quality than any TV they’re likely to own (not to mention it also works better than any 3DTV or 3D movie theater in existence because using one display for each eye creates a much better 3D image than the glasses you wear for a 3DTV or movie).

That’s all true, but Vision Pro is still huge! The tech industry’s current challenge is figuring out how to put the features, specs, and quality of Vision Pro into a pair of glasses that’s the size of Orion. It’s a massive technical challenge that will require multiple breakthroughs.

Again this is the long term vision—at least 10 years out. Orion represents a real step toward making this a reality, but it’s still very limited compared to the experience you get from a bulky headset like Vision Pro. Orion itself is not good enough to be the smartphone replacement, but future direction is clear.

So for those reasons, yes, I think people will buy AR glasses, but not until they provide better value than their smartphones. And that’s going to take another decade at least.

Q: You can’t type, the battery will never be as good as a bigger phone, and you have to wear glasses. Are [AR glasses] a dead end? Why or why not?

Ben: Typing in XR hasn’t been fully cracked, but there’s no reason to think it won’t ever be. This would be similar to thinking that a software keyboard on a smartphone could never be as good as a physical keyboard like on a Blackberry… but that couldn’t have been more thoroughly disproven.

There are many research avenues to making typing feel great for these kinds of devices; I would suggest taking at look at the EMG input device that Meta has been working on.

There’s no reason to think that the battery life could never match a phone. Meta is already working on this challenge with Orion which uses a wireless ‘compute puck’ (containing a large battery and processor) which offloads the heaviest workload of the glasses into this much larger device. That means the glasses can be fairly low power, while doing most of the computing on the compute puck before streaming it to be displayed on the glasses. Because this compute puck doesn’t need to come out of your pocket constantly like a smartphone (and it doesn’t need a screen, cameras, etc), it could actually have a larger battery than the average smartphone.

Q: Why is Zuckerberg and Meta so desperate for something that replaces Android and iOS phones?

Ben: Meta has always been beholden to Google and Apple because those companies control the platforms that Meta relies on to reach its audience. Meta has to follow their rules.

Meta’s entire journey into immersive tech—which began in 2014 with the acquisition of the VR startup Oculus—was entirely driven by Zuckerberg wanting to beat Google and Apple to the “next computing platform” so he wouldn’t be stuck under their thumb. I gave a breakdown of this situation in an article earlier this year which sums up more than a decade of Zuckerberg’s attempts to outmaneuver Apple & Google in immersive tech.

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Thank you for interesting opinion about next gen Ar glasses.

I agree with your overall point on the keyboard issue, but I'd unpack it a bit. It's not that the software keyboard on smartphones was better than the physical keyboard on Blackberrys. It's not and wasn't. What smartphones showed was that the software keyboard was good enough for what people needed it to do that they were willing to give up the somewhat superior physical keyboard in order to get the things that smartphones could do that Blackberrys couldn't. Moreover, the nature of the software keyboard led to multiple changes/innovations both in how software keyboards were laid out to make them easier to use as well as leading to a change in the style of language that people used when using the software keyboard to communicate.

Text input with AR glasses doesn't have to surpass the effectiveness of software keyboards on smartphones, it just needs to approximate the utility of those keyboards while offering enough value in other areas that people are willing to give up the thing that works well enough for them today.

Blackberry and software keyboards still use the QWERTY layout, introduced 1874 to stop mechanical type writers from jamming by placing the most frequently used keys physically far apart. Maybe losing the final physical part a smartphone surface provides will for once make people consider more efficient types of input. And there have always been alternatives.

Obviously we now have voice input, but sign languages expressing letters/words with hand gestures have existed for thousands of years and would be "readable" with hand tracking. If you don't want to learn a whole language, chorded keyboards where several keys are pressed simultaneously have been around since at least Douglas Engelbart's 1968 "Mother of all demos", and don't require moving the fingers around, only lifting them slightly, which again would be recognizable by hand tracking while requiring neither a surface nor precision. The hardcore version of chorded keyboards are stenotypes, used in court for real time transcripts by combining two handed chord keying with standardized shorthand abbreviations. More learning effort, but some people can type 375 words per minute this way, and again this would work with hand tracking and without a surface.

Once you stop considering a 150 year old system based on mechanical restrictions as the only possible input type, a lot of better options open for XR.

Agreed and well said.

Unless they can make those virtual screens you look at completely opaque, they will never replace a TV (or projection screen). Personally I don't even see the advantage of transparent screens in the workplace to replace your monitor, writing a letter/article on a transparent screen is very exhausting as your eye have to keep focusing in the text in front of you and not on the object behind it in the background.

Half-transparent displays are only useful for HUDs where blocking the view is detrimental, and for futuristic looking interfaces in SciFi movies impractical in reality. For anything text based you want the high contrast of black text on white ground, and even the dark modes now available everywhere are crap regarding readability of longer text on black, and should be avoided for most productivity use. Apple "cheats" on AVP, making black text bolder for extra contrast, to improve readability and fake sharpness.

Current see-through glasses use sandwiched multi-layer displays, with each layer performing a different task. On Magic Leap 2, one is a b/w LCD blocking incoming light on demand. This doesn't work per-pixel yet, and at best dims the light, never completely blocking it, but these issues can be overcome.

Hires monochrome LCD development is driven by SLS 3D printers using them as dynamic mask while exposing resin to UV light, with cheap printers now featuring 12K LCDs. All LCD use polarization, and could almost perfectly block all light by using several layers with twisted orientations.

The problem is that every layer reduced incoming light even when it's not supposed to, and also adds more complexity and cost. But nothing fundamentally prevents see-through glasses from becoming completely opaque and replacing TVs.

Its inevitable in that major investments in technology from the leading players are all focusing on this goal of "heads-up, hands free" smartphone replacement

i would recommend watching Hulu's "The First" television show to see the best representation I've yet seen of heavy glasses with switching between AR/VR and local sharing which is used by the colleague of a fallen astronaut to celebrate his life with his parents visiting the facility.

As someone dabbling with VR since early 90's I had no illusion about the length of time this would take and back in 2016 assumed we'd seen heavy glasses by mid 30's, it was along time from Virtuality to Vive Pre so I'm patient…

Regarding a suitable power source it's energy generation from walking or moving in smart fabric clothing in which you can also embed smartpucks, wireless aerial and power storage cells.

if you'd like to see one solution for the typing problem, check out the battersea power station scene in "Children of men" movie where a family member of the government minister is busy air typing using a cool wire hand exoskeleton

It will be brain implants. Everything in between will be a step towards this final destination. As it is printed above, „You can’t type, the battery will never be as good as a bigger phone, and you have to wear glasses.“. So yes, AR glasses are a dead end.

Technology adoption was NEVER based on and idea that "a new thing is better in every way than the previous one".

Horses can do things cars can't, and don't need oil often bought from a far away place.

CRT monitors are still in some ways superior to LCDs and were drastically superior 20 years ago, but sleek design and sizes won.

Tactile keyboards are better than touchscreen, but they disappeared in phones.

The overall value can still win, despite shortcomings. Same thing people don't understand about EV cars adoption.

First off, I think you're far more "future minded" than the interviewer – which is a good thing. Elon has constantly been doing things that others have said were impossible – and we need people like that to take us into the future.

My one beef on that is the whole "wearable" thing. The 3Dtv people found out that unfortunately, getting people to wear glasses all the time was a tough sell. I'm not sure if it's going to be do-able or not.

Given how much time people spend on their phones, I think it's not as out of reach as some may think, but it's not exactly a no-brainer, either.

I don't know about Elon. He's got issues besides a very questionable political lean. It wasn't that it was impossible. It was always considered expensive to those with other motives and agendas instead of expanding human knowledge and making things better for human life.

Beyond that, the problem with 3D TV was that the tech was expensive, the image darkened, the 3D content was hit or miss in quality, etc.

AR glasses would have more uses and replace multiple devices than what a television would provide, would be in full color, would be light on the face if processing and battery are off the head, can be taken anywhere at anytime.

3D TV was just watching content. Not making a phone call, surfing the web, playing games, taking pictures, watching content, doing productivity, listening to music, etc. As a person that managed and sold technology, I watched as MP3 players, GPS devices, cameras, calculators, televisions, radios and so on no longer selling to the point that we had to discount and put on clearance because of the cellphone. Because it did multiple things that one device couldn't do. Those other devices still sell in some fashion. But they have been surpassed in sales to the point that those other things are now niche.

Given enough uses, eventually cellphones will be matched then outsold compared to these future devices. It won't happen right away. I've seen products takes decades before they caught on. AR and even VR will take a while to get where they'll eventually be. It's inevitable. The article writer believes this but I've believed this for decades. I just want to be around long enough to see and experience it.

Just going to address the Elon thing quickly. And he was absolutely told that trying to make re-usable rockets was a waste of time and impossible by the head of the European Space Agency twenty years ago.

Of course, now they're at least a decade behind in the "space race" for their lack of vision.

But, as I mention below – I hope that the glasses thing do work. I mentioned the resistance to wearables as a devil's advocate, not b/c I wouldn't want the idea to succeed. I definitely would love to see that in my lifetime as well.

People are happy to wear things if the value is there. At any given gym you'll find probably the majority of people there have headphones or earbuds in. Lots of people wear sunglasses simply to stop from squinting (because they're low cost and minimally inconvenient).

If you can fit a ton of useful functionality into something that's close to sunglasses, it stands to reason people will be happy to wear them… as long as they can afford them.

Smartphones increasing (instead of decreasing) in price over the years reflects their growing value to people's everyday lives.

I hope you're right! I wear glasses anyway, so it's "no brainer" for me, but then again, I also got a 3DTV back in the day too, and that died out, so… ;)

Peple say 3DTV died because of people don't wanting to wearing glasses, but I think they died because of the terrible experience they had (bad stereoscopy production in many films, crosstalk, flickering, batteries) and terrible industry tech preferennt choice (active vs passive). By the time many of those problems were solved (mainly whith 4K passive 3DTVs) the hate had already susbtituted the hype and the 3DTV industry was DOA.

I'm not up to speed on all the tech, and I didn't have a 4K 3DTV, but I enjoyed the heck out of the 3D stuff I did get (like The Hobbit, IIRC) – but it also took a lot of work for the industry to do 3D movies, and since the market wasn't there, I'm sure that was part of why they died.

I feel like VR has been in the same boat, and one of the only reasons it's still saying even remotely viable is it happens to have a billionaire crazy enough to bankroll it into existence. The same was true of EVs (and other car companies really only upped their game after Elon) ditto rockets that are re-usable.

I imagine the next phase of "cell phone becomes wearable glasses/AR unit" may need another billionaire or equivalent to push it (like Apple). And, who knows, maybe their VR unit is the first step in that direction that could see us in ten years wearing everything in one glasses.

Had 3DTV had an Apple or Mark or Elon behind it, perhaps they'd have caught on.

The existing big tech ogipolies have this same wet dream only because a fear of some upstarts taking away their current business. They are getting so extreme to think that some AI smart-ass interface is going to help them for lack of any better input method! Only their employees that live in a tech bubble think people will want a device that second guesses their every move and constantly nags them because that is what they are aclimatised for in their little world that is unsustainable.

You're out of touch.

AR Glasses will not replace mobile phones. Although Meta is willing to lose billions of dollars on it per month because Meta wants to filter everything you see through their Meta OS lense.

People choosing to use AR are choosing Meta slavery on top of the existing Income Tax slavery we are all under.

Yep, that's why i live in a cave away from Metas lenses spying on me

How is that different from "Apple slavery" with their walled garden?

The form factor doesn't change anything in this regard. But I agree that we should suport open platforms, like PC.

The difference between apple and meta is that Meta is losing billions per month trying to push their products on the general masses.

Apple sells their hardware at profit and for now is limited to the wealthy.

The AVP is also Targeted at filtering everything you see and hear via Apple. So Apple's intention is the same as Meta except apple isn't will lose billions per month doing it.

It will never replaced the phone simply for the fact that it's stationed on your face.

There are people who wear contact lenses to avoid having glasses on their face. People (especially woman) won't wear a nerdy glasses. Wearable tech like smartwatches is mainstream because it's unobtrusive, it stays out of sight on your wrists. Any wearable tech that's on your face will never be mainstream.

Headphones are a thing, even Apple makes them (the bulky ones).Somehow a lot of people gives up on speakers and decides to wear bulky headphones, not just audiophiles.

Headphones are on your ears – not your face.

They make you look absolutely ridiculous, but we got used to it. Heck, some even use it as an "fashion" item.It's often the main argument against HMDs.

Headphone doesn't affect your appearances, even young women wears them. Try to sell your nerdy AR glasses to them – see if they will wear it.

The vast majority of people just don't want to wear tech on their face.I think Ben is way too optimistic here.