I am so unbelievably excited for consumer-grade, useful AR.
There was a lot of hype around VR, but for the last 10 years I've been following progress on AR glasses.
The thing about AR is that it has the ability to enhance everything in your daily life, versus VR which is meant to be a separate experience.
Both Meta and Samsung are due to put out consumer AR glasses later this year and I think this might be the first wave of useful, daily-wear glasses we'll see.
Is there anyone who works in the AR space that could comment more?
I've been building smart glasses for over 7 years. First 6 years were in academia because the tech wasn't ready yet, because they were too heavy and battery didn't last long enough.
But in the last year, all-day battery smart glasses have become lightweight enough to be worn all day (see Even Realities G1, Vuzix Z100, etc.).
I believe smart glasses are having their iPhone moment in 2025 + 2026.
We make the smart glasses OS that Kevin used in the video to make this smart glasses app: AugmentOS.org
I want one thing - tell me people's names. I have the unholy ability to say your name several times and have an hour long conversation, and still not remember it next time I see you. People take this so personally that I've started avoiding some social gatherings where I only lightly know people! I'd love to "know" the name of everyone I've met because I'd be so much more comfortable seeing and talking to them again!
Are you me? I have the same issue, when I see someone not in my immediate circle and out of context, say on the street, it takes me some time to recall their name from my jumbled memory.
If there’s context (eg I go to another department at work, or see my child’s friend with their parent) I can get their name easier. But that barrier for being out of context can be difficult to surmount.
I’m curious if you also find yourself having trouble to remembering other names when in conversation (eg what was that politician called, what’s that city name, it begins with an F…)
Usually it’s proper nouns that I have trouble recalling. It’s almost like I need an Anki to refresh my mental DRAM and keep things recallable.
Yes I very much have those problems. It's strange because I'm objectively a good engineer, but semantic retrieval is very difficult for me. It has been my entire life.
When I was a kid I did a round of testing for ADHD, and one of the tests is category fluency. Basically they gave me a category (e.g. Breakfast foods) and told me to say as many words in that category as I could in 60 seconds. I failed miserably; the administrator told me it was essentially as bad as people with severe cognitive deficiency. I just haven't worked about it since then! (Except with names!!)
You must be young. Social well being is the number 1 indicator of happiness, and is indeed correlates with long life. If this one change was enough for someone to be more social and spend more time with a wider group of people, it could have many positive effects. I see this in my life.
I'd be neat to have information displayed while driving a car. A subset of information currently displayed on a dashboard would be an obvious first choice (speed for one).
You could also maybe perhaps tie in a car's knowledge of adjacent vehicles, which is something I've wanted for ages. Since some newer models have some level of awareness about the speed / distance to / relative ___location of cars around your car, you could eg overlay the speed/acceleration info onto adjacent cars, so you'd know if you'll need to pass or speed up. Seems at least possible since the glasses have awareness of your head's orientation, something missing from any existing windscreen-style HUD system.
You can get prescription inserts from Vuzix, but they're pretty bad. If you need a prescription, and want to run AugmentOS, your best bet is to buy the Even Realities G1 instead.
There was a lot of hype around VR, but for the last 10 years I've been following progress on AR glasses.
The thing about AR is that it has the ability to enhance everything in your daily life, versus VR which is meant to be a separate experience.
Both Meta and Samsung are due to put out consumer AR glasses later this year and I think this might be the first wave of useful, daily-wear glasses we'll see.
Is there anyone who works in the AR space that could comment more?