Smart glasses are a concept in the extended reality environment that continues to develop every year. Although Google Glass might have flopped a few years ago, we’re now in a position where the technology available for these tools is more accessible than ever. We’re not limited by the same restrictions we had only five years ago, and innovators now have more avenues for creating intelligent devices that address common needs.
Facebook, one of the world leaders in the tech world today, is working to create its first pair of “smart glasses” with a leading designer, Ray-Ban. The new product will be available in 2021, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and it was announced as part of the opening keynote for the all-virtual Facebook Connect conference. While it’s not certain yet which features the smart glasses will offer, Facebook has confirmed that these glasses don’t offer AR.
Instead of a full augmented reality experience, you can expect something closer to Amazon’s Echo Frames, or the latest Snap Spectacles, which give you access to pieces of digital information in your glasses.
An Exciting Step Forward in Facebook Glasses
The partnership with Ray-Ban on the new smart glasses for 2021 will combine the technologies and apps off Facebook with the category leadership of Essilor Luxottica (Ray-Ban’s parent company). According to the two organizations, this ongoing work will help people to stay better connected to their family and friends in a changing digital landscape. The idea is to create a pair of smart glasses that people like wearing.
According to Facebook, although these new glasses with Ray-Ban won’t be official “AR glasses”, they’re an important step forward in the company’s work on augmented and extended reality. The “Project Aria” research will eventually lead to a set of fully-fledged AR glasses, although there’s no insight on when these will be available.
Project Aria glasses with AR solutions will start life with regular testing in the Facebook office. According to Andrew Bosworth, the head of hardware, starting in September, employees, and contractors will begin using this technology regularly. The devices will capture eye-tracking, audio, video, and location data that Facebook can access to aid the development of augmented reality tools.
According to Bosworth, the research happening right now will help the company to understand what kind of software and hardware is necessary for real AR technology. Employees wearing Aria glasses will also receive training on when they can wear the technology, as sensitive locations (like bathrooms) will need to remain off-limits.
The data collected also needs to avoid any sensitive and identifiable information like facial features and license plates.
The Path to Facebook AR
For years, Facebook has been talking about its plans to build AR technology that resembles a standard, comfortable pair of glasses. Working with the Ray-Ban parent company will make it easier for Facebook to build the kind of technology that today’s consumers are dreaming of. Although rumors about the collaboration have been around for a while now, they weren’t officially confirmed until recently.
According to Bosworth, Facebook is passionate about creating devices that can give people better ways to connect with the people they care about most. Wearables have the potential to do this. With Essilor Luxottica, Facebook will have an ambitious partner also keen to help catalog the first pair of genuinely fashionable glasses for smart performance.
Chief of Wearables at Luxottica, Rocco Basilico, said that the company is extremely proud of its collaboration with Facebook. The technology that the two teams are working on today will help to drive Ray-Ban into an increasingly impressive future. Together, the two companies hope to reset the expectations around modern wearables, while paving the way for a new generation of products that will change the way people look at the world.
Facebook isn’t the only company experimenting with a world where smart glasses may be more comfortable and attractive in the future. AR technology and glasses intended to look like standard pieces of eyewear are becoming more common around the world. North, a company now owned by Google is creating a similar set of glasses to the ones promised by Facebook. NReal is another company working on an eyewear solution.
Meanwhile, many of the major technology giants like Amazon, Apple, and Intel are either already releasing devices in the smart glasses landscape, or they’re working on something actively. Facebook is just becoming a lot more transparent about the work it’s doing in this environment in the last couple of years.
Will Facebook Be the Ultimate Smart Pioneer?
Since Reality Labs formed in 2018, Facebook hasn’t hidden the fact that it’s working on more augmented reality and enhanced experiences for customers. Reality Labs already offers various insights into the brain-interface project that Facebook is working on, with behind the scenes looks at the company’s futuristic approach to AR design and other work that may influence product development at Oculus too.
In 2020, Facebook also released a series of prototype design images and white papers that highlight a vision of what future AR and VR devices might look like through Project Aria. Plus, the company regularly purchases brands that will help to strengthen their position in the market, like CTRL-Labs.
While the introduction of Ray-Ban smart glasses is sure to be an exciting thing for many customers, it seems to be just the first step in an exciting route forward for Facebook. If you combine the arrival of more wearable devices with the development of software like Live Maps, which Oculus says will help people to use AR glasses in the real world, a new vision of the future emerges. Soon, we may have smart AR glasses that can download data from 3D maps instantly, detect changes in your surroundings, and enhance the everyday world.
The arrival of designer smart glasses in 2021 might be the catalyst that ignites a new era for AR.
