Ever since Facebook unveiled its augmented reality focused “Project Aria” back in September 2020, the world has been waiting patiently to see what technological marvels the company would bring to the table.
While AR-driven smart glasses got off to a rocky start with the infamous failure of Google Glass back in 2013, all trends and marketplace predictions are telling us that smart glasses are coming back in a big way over the next 12 months – and Facebook is leading the charge!
“Sooner rather than later”
Although there’s still no official launch date for the AR smart glasses, Facebook Hardware chief, Andrew Bosworth, stated in his blog that he expects they will arrive “sooner rather than later” in 2021.
Elsewhere, in a report with Bloomberg, Bosworth added the company was reluctant to hand out too many details regarding the upcoming release of its first smart glasses offering.
“We’re excited about it, but we don’t want to over-hype it. We’re not even calling it augmented reality; we’re just calling it ‘smart glasses,” Bosworth tells Bloomberg.
To date, there are no official images of the AR glasses, but given the company is collaborating with Ray-Ban, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of consumer eyewear, we suspect the headsets will adopt a minimalist, fashion-orientated design.
Along with smart glasses, Bosworth also stated in his blog that the company had invested a lot of time and capital on expanding its AR ecosystem.
The Spark AR creator platform, for example, has seen over 400K creators publish AR effects, and that creativity has inspired Facebook to continue expanding Spark AR into real-time video calling and other areas in 2021.
“We’re pushing hard on the underpinnings like location and augmenting in the world to help define the path to true AR glasses while setting clear privacy expectations,” he adds.
An exciting year for smart glasses
With Lenovo and Vuzix having just unveiled their new AR smart glasses at CES 2021 and rumors that Apple will do the same within the next six months, it’s fair to say Facebook has some stiff competition on the road ahead.
Yet, after establishing itself as the dominant force in the VR Headsets space last year following the release of its game-changing flagship offering, Oculus Quest 2, the spotlight is on Facebook to see if it can achieve the similar success in the world of AR.
While it’s still too early to say which of the major competitors will come out on top, we can safely say that 2021 will be a fascinating year for the AR smart glasses market – and XR Today will be reporting on it every step of the way!
