2024-08-06 22:40:29
“Smart glasses have not been very successful so far. Introduced back in 2013, the legendary Google Glass was discontinued in 2015, and a similar streak of failure followed most subsequent products. Although Meta’s smart glasses, developed in collaboration with Ray-Ban, successfully shake off this curse, they are still a long way from mass production. As is the fashion now, manufacturers are putting a lot of hope into the usage scenarios associated with artificial intelligence (AI), but users will inevitably have to answer the question – can this device offer something more than their smartphones and headphones?’, says Telia Marijonas Baltušis, an expert in smart devices.
300 euros and hundreds of millions of users
According to TechRadar, Mr. Zuckerberg didn’t hold back when sharing his insights at a recent event. The godfather of social networks said that he believes that the AI glasses, which cost around 300 euros and do not have any screen, will be the product that will be purchased by tens, maybe even hundreds of millions of users.
“This high level of optimism from the Meta executive is likely driven by better-than-expected sales of the current Ray-Ban Meta.” Speaking to analysts earlier this year, Mr. Zuckerberg boasted that the current demand for smart glasses exceeds the supply and the company has already managed to increase their production volumes in factories. However, the company is not yet willing to share specific numbers of units sold, which probably indicates that they are not very large. In comparison, it took almost a decade for smart watches to reach the threshold of hundreds of millions of sales, so it is quite naive to expect a renaissance of smart glasses soon”, M. Baltušis believes.
The expert also points out that Mr. Zuckerberg did not answer at the conference exactly what kind of glasses will become a global hit, and instead only hinted that three main types will dominate the market. One of them will likely be the current one, designed to stand in for headphones and allow you to capture moments using the cameras integrated in the glasses, while the others remain a mystery for now.
Spectacles are not only of interest to Meta
As utopian as the Facebook founder’s vision for smart glasses may seem, it seems to fit the current mood of the tech market. A few days ago, reports appeared in the media that “Meta” was preparing to acquire 5 percent. share of the world’s largest glasses manufacturer EssilorLuxottica, a new player unexpectedly appeared on the horizon – Google.
According to the leaked information, Google recently met with the management of EssilorLuxottica to discuss the possibility of future integration of its AI assistant Gemini in their products. This would mean a major conflict of interest with Meta, which has been cooperating with the aforementioned glasses manufacturer for the fourth year already and has already managed to install a competing AI assistant, Meta AI, in the Ray-Ban Meta released this year. That is why analysts are very pessimistic about Google’s chances of luring this big “fish” of the glasses market away from its opponents.
According to a representative of the telecommunications company, the desire to use such well-known brands as Ray-Ban and Oakley, which controls EssilorLuxottica, is very logical. Glasses, perhaps even more than smart watches, are a style accessory, so they must look fashionable. It is likely that by purposefully increasing control in this company, Meta or Google would be able to offer smart technologies in all lines of more expensive glasses, thus not giving the user the opportunity not to choose ordinary, ignorant versions. Or the opposite – allowing the buyer not to sacrifice the hottest style trends in the name of technological progress.
“On the other hand, the question arises to what extent the legendary eyewear brands themselves would be inclined to associate themselves with rapidly aging technologies, rather than timeless classics.” This is perfectly illustrated by the attempts of well-known fashion houses to offer smart versions of their watches to the market with the Wear OS operating system developed by Google. It only took a few years for Louis Vuitton, Movado, Michael Kors, and Emporio Armani to give up after trying this concept and finally leave the “scene” of smart watches to the real technology giants – Apple, Samsung, and Garmin. “, M. Baltušis thinks.
From headset replacement to object recognition
Unlike smartphones or watches, glasses do not yet have a clear purpose for digitization. Here’s the latest and most popular Ray-Ban Meta equipped with a whole host of useful electronic components. They have a decent-quality 12-megapixel camera, sensitive microphones and directional speakers, and everything is crowned by a reasonably powerful Snapdragon chip installed inside. Unfortunately, all this does not give this device, which is sold in only a few Western countries, any unseen powers.
Ray-Ban Meta’s biggest innovation is the glasses’ ability to recognize surrounding objects and answer everyday questions using AI. For example, when visiting a city in a foreign country, Ray-Ban Meta can tell the history of the buildings you see, translate the text written on road signs in a foreign language, or tell you how to cook the desired dish for dinner. These glasses are also capable of playing music, replacing the headphones, and with one click, capture content from the user’s eye perspective for social networks.
“All this looks very useful at first glance, but only until you remember the fact that for the full functionality of these glasses you have to have a smartphone in your pocket. The problem is that the latter device allows you to perform the same tasks and, presumably, even better. It will likely have an even more capable camera, offer even a few different AI assistants to choose from, including Gemini and ChatGPT, and won’t force you to use voice or a single button on the body for control. What’s more, for a budget of almost 300 euros for the price of smart glasses, the user can purchase a smart watch and wireless headphones, which will expand the possibilities of health monitoring and provide even clearer sound quality”, reveals M. Baltušis.
According to a telecommunications company’s expert on smart devices, such glasses equipped with cameras and speakers are likely to find their buyer, but they are unlikely to be counted in the tens or impressive-sounding hundreds of millions. Their functions can simply be performed by other devices we have, which makes it more like a luxury accessory than a necessary tool for the modern man. The secret to the mass popularity of smart glasses is likely to lie in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), where Apple and the same Meta have their eyes set. With the proliferation of specialized content and unique applications, these glasses have the potential to transform our leisure time and increase work productivity by enriching the world around us with digital elements.
2024-08-06 22:40:29