A headset can be quite an antisocial device. You’re effectively closing out the real world to enter a virtual one. It can also get hot and sweaty, in gaming for example, if you’re playing for a while. And if you’ve spent all day staring at a screen, the last thing you might want is to climb into another computer at the end of the day.
There are many among us (particularly and perhaps surprisingly Gen Z) who are actively trying to escape the grip of their smartphones, let alone buy more internet-enabled tech. But AR-specific eyewear is likely a few years away yet.
As Google discovered, it is a significant technological challenge to develop advanced assistive eyewear that is light enough (and has enough battery power) to be worn comfortably throughout the day. As such, Google has already decided to stop selling the Glass Enterprise Edition, and wind down support for it.
Headset manufacturers pivot to industrial use
In recent years, most headset manufacturers have pivoted away from everyday consumer use to focus on specific industrial use. This makes sense: The technological performance and immersive experience of these headsets are genuinely jaw-dropping, and so is the price tag.
Even big businesses are thinking twice about reordering or upgrading headsets in these challenging economic times. Both Magic Leap and Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 have been used across many industries from design and architecture to science and medical care, with the latter being adopted by the U.S. Army and even by NASA to help astronauts carry out maintenance work on spacewalks.
In most of these cases, the benefits of heads-up AR assistive displays have been quantitatively proven. And at SXSW, futurist Amy Webb posited that 10 years from now, we will look back on today and find it utterly incredible that we would let any surgeon operate on us without an assistive display!
Apple has entered the chat
But there is one factor that may just accelerate any paradigm shift.
Rumors have persisted for many years now about the launch of an Apple AR/VR headset and what that might mean for a nascent category struggling to gain traction with consumers. Those rumors may finally be turning into reality, with reports that an Apple AR/VR headset will be announced later this year.
Can Apple change the game? They have a unique ability to define a category, and so it would not be a surprise if consumer demand accelerated the marketplace. However, there are suggestions that any launch will happen despite reservations from the Apple design team that the device is not yet ready for release. And that a reported cost in the region of $3,000 will put it out of reach of even the most ardent Apple fanboys. It is probably better to think about it as a developer version (much like the Meta Quest Pro), with cheaper models likely to follow for a wider consumer base over the next few years.