As for this present time, both Apple and Google have chosen to go with a AR solution that does not require to wear any device to experience AR, just your phone or tablet. Google has introduced ARCore, whether Apple has its ARKit technology.
The main reason for this is accessibility. Speaking of ARKit, there are already hundreds of millions of devices that can run ARKit apps (195M by the end of 2017 according to this article on medium.com, some say even close to 300M. Had Apple has chosen to offer this technology only with a new set of devices, this number was far less from that. In fact, Google tried to do it with its Tango platform, but then switched to ARCore and retired the Tango brand. The main reasons are the increase of the phone’s cost, slow adaption among phone manufacturers (which means less variety of phones for consumers to choose from), the effect on the external design itself, etc.
Bottom line is that not so many people bought a Tango AR device, and this means that the platform was much less attractive to developers to develop apps for it. Developers preferred putting effort and money into developing an app for a more popular platform where they are more likely to see more profit from their effort.
Apple just releases ARKit and it turned into a big hit and with one ARKit title Stack AR becoming the first ARKit game to top Apple App store’s free-to-play category (source: venturebeat.com). Indeed, ARKit and ARCore can’t compete with the accuracy and scene recognition of Google Tango, they are designed purely for detecting surfaces in the real world and give developers option to use that data to develop games on. Maybe will get to see this technology in Google AR glasses in the future, but as for now, developers are focusing on developing apps for those two leading platforms: ARCore and ARKit.
Microsoft HoloLens is a great Piece of technology, but…
Microsoft HoloLens is a great idea but failed to penetrate the market due to heavy manufacturing cost. I just checked the price of HoloLens on Microsoft’s website. The Development Edition costs $3,000 and the Commercial Suite costs $5,000. Now, how many people can really afford to buy this, even as a developer, it’s a very expensive price. If you were a developer, just think about it for a second, you need to pay a premium price for the hardware in order to have the requires tools to start developing apps for it, and what about your audience, how many customers do you think will be able to use your app?—Well, a great technology, but very little accessibility for both developers and consumers.
It’s all about developers. That great piece of technology worth nothing if there is very few app available for it and few developers willing to develop for it.
Now, HoloLens is a great product, but it just came too early. By the time other companies will release their AR headsets, the hardware prices will be much lower and they will be able to offer competing products that cost much less, but it will take some time.
HoloLens Glasses aren’t the only AR Glasses out there
There are still many other companies that release their AR glasses for different types of uses (some of them are no longer being manufactured though). For example, you have CastAR that with its Magic Wand allows you to interact with the augmented world. You have the Moverio BT-200 which is an augmented reality headset capable of watching HD content. Meta headset is able to do full-fledged 3D modeling, Icis which look like normal eyewear and connect to your iOS, Android and Windows platform using Bluetooth that can show widgets in the augmented reality world. There are many others AR glasses like GlassUP, Atheer One, K-Glass and many others, all those companies showcase their AR glasses and their specific use for it using their technologies.
So why AR needs to be Integrated into Glasses?
There is a reason why many companies make AR integrated into glasses and I want to mention some of those reasons here in this article. It was a long intro, but I just wanted you to see more or less where the Augmented Reality (AR) market stand. Of course, it is changing every day, but after reading many articles, I have no doubt that the future of AR is within eyewear. I don’t think this means that AR will be found only in glasses in the future, but as you soon see, for many applications, using AR tech as part of glasses is the only way to go.
- Seamless visual assimilation with the real world — when you wear glasses, the 3D virtual content overlays the real world in a very seamless way. When you use a mobile device, you can only see it through a window, which is the mobile device’s display. When you wear glasses, there are no bounds, the entire field of view is your screen.
- Better Immersion — the user will be more immersed in the AR experience using AR glasses because the virtual will appear as part of the real world. With great visual quality and lighting optimizations, sometimes you won’t even able to tell what is virtual and what is real.
- Hand extension and simulation — I just thought about it yesterday. With ARKit, in most cases, you use touch gestures to control what’s happening on the screen. With AR glasses, there is an option to use your hands for doing more precise controls and even deploy another virtual version of the hand. For example, you can use it to paint onto a virtual canvas with the same precision and control that you have using a real paintbrush. In a game, you will be able to have virtual Mech hands with cannons on them that shoot rockets, or have Spider-Man like hands which can shoot spider web to catch virtual objects in the scene. The possibilities are endless, and you will only able to do that if your hands are free.
- Hands-free handling and operation — this the base which the above functionality derives from. Unlike with ARCore and ARKit technologies, you get to enjoy a hands-free experience. Not just that it’s more comfortable, you don’t need to hold (sometimes) a heavy device in your hand for a long period of time, your hands are free for interactions with the augmented world or doing other stuff that isn’t AR related. You can use an app while doing sports activities like riding a bicycle for example, how you are going to do exactly while holding an iPhone in your hand?
- Always-on Contextual information — With AR glasses you can have constant contextual information right in front of you everywhere you go. There are endless possibilities for it. For example, seeing walking navigation routes to a designated address without needing to look at your phone, which can sometimes be complicated and kind of awkward even with today’s technologies. You can see a recommendation of restaurants in the street that you are on, including viewing a menu even without entering the place. You can see warning, alerts and messages without even taking your phone out of your pocket, again, endless possibilities.
I assume that some of the early versions of AR glasses will use tight integration with the mobile device. The main reason for that it that the technologies for putting powerful computing chipsets on such a thin and fashionable item will be very expensive. We need a few technology cycles in order for those technologies to have a relatively low price so hardware manufacturers can make their products more accessible.
I am very interested to hear your thoughts about this topic. Why do you think are the advantages and disadvantages in using Augmented Reality glasses?
Thanks for reading.