Augmented reality in 2018: Smart glasses emerge as the big battleground
The magic of augmented reality is that we can don a pair of glasses and see things other people cannot see, overlaying the world we live in with holograms and virtual objects and allowing us to see abstract ideas visually. But with the singular exception of the hit mobile game “Pokemon Go,” AR’s introduction to the public has been slow, using mobile phones to provide “windows” into that other reality via limited forays into entertainment and journalism.
This year will reveal how soon and how much that will change, but the direction, at least, is already clear.
“We know what we really want: AR glasses,” Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash said at Facebook’s F8 developers’ conference in April. “They aren’t here yet, but when they arrive they’re going to be the great transformational technologies of the next 50 years. Instead of carrying stylish smartphones everywhere, we’ll be wearing stylish glasses.”
However, these glasses do not exist yet in mass production. Currently, the primary way that the public and business users experience AR is through mobile devices. Right now, multiple businesses are pushing to become the first to market with those glasses and 2018 will likely become the battleground for the first generation of these devices – although they will probably be goggles and not spectacles at least in the beginning.
On the hardware side, the market from 2017 is shaping up around wearable mobile virtual reality headsets that can double as AR headsets. Microsoft Corp. calls this “mixed reality,” and the technology underlies the development of Microsoft’s groundbreaking AR headset HoloLens. Although HoloLens is an amazing AR experience, it’s not yet available to the public.
So instead we need to look to Vuzix Corp. and the Vuzix Blade Smart Glasses (pictured) revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show this month. But they won’t be available to consumers until later this year, and they’ll cost about $1,000 apiece — hardly a mass-market item.
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