A revolution in wearable technology is now on the horizon. We will soon see a legion of smart glasses that combine AI-backed visual and audio information on demand and as needed, delivered with or without your nearby smartphone, and all without the imposition of strange glances or physical discomfort. However, the revolution must still be built on “aha!” moments (and maybe some FOMO).
That’s the conclusion I came to after speaking with Juston Payne, senior director of product management for XR at Google. We were chatting moments after I had my own “aha!” Moments with monocular and dual-screen Android XR smart glasses at the development kit level. You can read more about that impressive first look here.
Reaching the turning point
However, there is still quite a distance to go from the “aha!” of the Payne family. moment of true fear of missing out (“FOMO”), that moment when the availability and ubiquity of Android XR smart glasses generate FOMO among other consumers and drive adoption.
Google and Android XR partner Samsung has already announced partnerships with eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. However, I pointed out that most people probably still get their glasses from places like LensCrafters and Visionworks. Payne highlighted the partnership announcement with Kering Eyewear, but remains a supplier of luxury eyewear.
Payne acknowledged that the vision is much broader availability.
“So the idea is that over time we want to get to the vision that you said: that anyone can walk into a store and pick up a smart version, which runs Android XR and Gemini. And it will be a really exciting future to get to.”
The key, he told me, is to ensure the industry offers the right form factors and, especially, pricing. Lens options, he added, should “include people’s different visual needs.”
A great moment for Android XR
Payne and I spoke as Google and its partners prepared to kick off Android Day: XR Edition (December 8), the moment when everyone would see their vision of Android XR-powered smart glasses.
The glasses, while not quite ready for prime time, are the clearest indication of Android’s plans and full-blown aspirations for Android
The single- and dual-screen glasses, along with the Xreal Aura (revealed at the same event) and the Samsung Galaxy XR mixed reality headset that I recently reviewed, now represent the full spectrum of Google’s current Android XR ambitions.
While they are all based on Gemini intelligence, there are differences that I experienced in my hands-on demonstrations. I was curious to see if Google is dictating, for example, the display style, which ranges from the Sony Micro OLED displays and prisms found on the Xreal Aura (which actually plugs into a pocket-size computing package) to the wide, high-resolution field of view of the Galaxy
It turns out that while Google doesn’t dictate viewing experiences, it does have opinions on this topic. There are, Payne explained, reasons for all these differences.
“It’s actually helpful to think in terms of the type of use we expect from the products and then work with partner companies to find the right solutions,” he said.
Use cases define screens
Products used “episodically”, such as the Aura or the Galaxy XR, need optical systems that prioritize a wide field of view. For these products, partial or even full occlusion of your real-world field of view is fine because you are often sitting and, for example, playing a game or watching a video.
Obviously, the requirements are different for glasses where you can’t afford to have the lenses significantly dulled or occluded. “For that, you need a completely clear lens. Like a beautiful, crystal clear lens where you have a screen built right into the lens. Those will be waveguide solutions.”
In fact, we believe that the same person will probably own several XR products in their lifetime.
Juston Payne, Google’s senior director of product management for XR
Not only is the idea of Android XR not “one size fits all,” Payne envisions a future where people own more than one XR device. “In fact, we think the same person will probably have multiple XR products in their lifetime. Pretty much the same way someone doesn’t have a laptop or a phone; they have a laptop and a phone.”
Of course, that means even lighter and thinner glasses and generally cheaper and more easily accessible smart frames, and there will be an ecosystem and applications that support smart glasses. Payne is excited about the future and sees a parallel to at least one other technological era.
“We think this is actually a very early space, and the story hasn’t been written for it yet. So it’s great to see that there’s momentum, it’s great to see that there’s some traction out there. But, you know, contextualizing it: there are no glasses that have an app ecosystem attached to them yet. So in that sense, it’s almost like the launch of the iPhone, and there was no App Store; there was like that small period of time. We’re still in that era.”
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