Smartphones will first supplement, then be replaced by smart eyewear from companies like Amazon, Meta, and Snap.
The hazy outlines of mobile computing’s upcoming stage are now clearly manifesting as a scene filled with smart glasses.
Of course, not everybody is currently able to perceive it. The fact that there are so many various types of smart glasses—some of which are even mistaken for virtual reality (VR) headsets—has only made it harder for some people to understand these gadgets as a new mobile platform.
Smart glasses’ utility will, however, become clearer as they progressively spread beyond early adopters and start to appear on the faces of casual mainstream users.
The majority of smart glasses fall into one of these groups:
frames with built-in speakers, microphones, and cameras frames with a flat, two-dimensional picture display on the lens (like Google Glass), and frames and headsets that produce a three-dimensional image and spatial audio.
The last two examples are typically referred to as computing interfaces for augmented reality (AR). And next year, their sales are anticipated to soar.
Only half the battle is won by connecting to the cloud.
Soon, mobile computing won’t be represented by a person looking down at their smartphone; instead, it will be supported by competing cloud computing layers connected to wireless networks.
In China, South Korea, Israel, to mention a few, there are already a number of smart glasses and augmented reality advancements in use. However, the majority of IT companies have primarily concentrated on simpler, smartphone-assistive devices while they wait for lens display and battery technology to catch up to their expectations.
Here is a look at the many devices that are now on the market for the general public in the US (a crucial market for determining mainstream viability), as well as an outlook for the most anticipated upcoming new competitors in the market.
The entry-level smart eyewear called Amazon Echo Frames could be handy for almost everybody.
The Kindle ebook reader was Amazon’s entry point into the hardware market in 2007, and it has since evolved to include anything from smart speakers to interactive video displays. Similar to the Kindle, Amazon’s $249 Echo Frames let users access a wide range of cloud-based e-commerce content and services. They were introduced in 2019.
The innovation in this situation is that Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant, may be accessed through voice commands when wearing Echo Frames. The thin, unassuming frames, which can be customised with prescription lenses and are equipped with microphones and open-ear headphones (basically, speakers that most people close can’t hear), allow the wearer to listen to music, podcasts, answer calls, and verbally transmit messages. The frames also contain a touch panel on the arm that can be used to operate functions in the event that the user’s environment is too noisy for speech interactions.
They currently only exist in one frame form, a handful of colours, and a pair of sunglasses. Bose Frames from the world leader in audio and Razer Anzu from the gaming company may have slightly better designs and be competitive in some feature categories, but Echo Frames has the clear advantage in this market due to its close integration with Amazon’s voice assistant and various cloud services.
Coming into focus: Amazon hasn’t updated its Echo Frames product in a significant way for a while, but given on how frequently it updates other Echo hardware items, there’s a high likelihood that an upgrade will occur within the next 12 months.
