Immersive Technology Merging Reality: Smart Glasses and the Metaverse Exploration
The expansion of companies investing in the metaverse has seen a significant increase in recent years, with potential metaverse-related revenues expected to reach trillions of dollars by the end of the decade. While there are already multiple metaverse platforms, experiences, and worlds, the necessary hardware developments are needed for the metaverse to become the fully immersive virtual world that many are predicting.
Current metaverse experiences, such as Decentraland and The Sandbox, are primarily accessed through standard PC screens or virtual reality headsets. They provide world-building and 3D experiences but lack full integration into the metaverse and can feel less than fully immersive. Other virtual reality uses, like VR training and shopping, are only accessible through VR headsets like the Oculus Quest 2, which, despite improvements, are still bulky and not suitable for long-term use.
Augmented reality, where digital content is superimposed over real-world scenes, can be accessed through smartphones and some advanced smart glasses currently available on the market. However, to create a seamless interaction suitable for the metaverse, a combination of augmented reality and virtual reality technologies is required, which leads to mixed reality.
In mixed reality, digital overlays provided by augmented reality blend with the digital interaction of virtual reality, creating a cohesive merging of the physical and virtual worlds. Mixed reality has already been implemented in healthcare, military training, and other fields.
Smart glasses may hold the key to achieving the hardware requirements necessary for an immersive metaverse experience. Due to their smaller, lighter, and more comfortable designs, they provide the potential to be worn throughout the day without causing discomfort. However, current smart glasses still have some way to go to meet the needs for true metaverse integration, as they require an improvement in display quality, battery life, and privacy protections.
Google Glass, introduced in 2013, marked the beginning of the smart glass era but had limited success. Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple have all made significant strides in the development of smart glasses, with Facebook teaming up with Ray-Ban to create the Ray-Ban Stories in 2021. The Ray-Ban Stories serve more like smartphones, allowing users to take photos, answer calls, and listen to music. While this is a step towards metaverse experiences, it currently falls short of the more advanced mixed reality capabilities required.
Other smart glasses, such as the Nreal Air AR Glasses and Lenovo's ThinkReality A3, cater to specific industries and workplaces, offering greater versatility and functionality for employees engaging in remote work and visual collaborations.
Despite the limitations of current smart glasses, several exciting projects are underway to improve their capabilities. Meta, through its CTRL-labs acquisition, aims to develop brain-computer interface technology that will enable users to control their smart glasses by thinking and subsequently typing on a virtual keyboard without moving their fingers. Meta has set a five-to-ten-year timeline for the completion of this ambitious project.
While many challenges remain, including meeting the visual Turing test requirements and addressing privacy concerns, the future of smart glasses looks promising in the development of the metaverse. The technology is poised to evolve into the ultimate platform for integrated metaverse experiences in both entertainment and business, enabling users to immerse themselves in virtual worlds seamlessly and effortlessly.
Wearables, such as advanced smart glasses, are expected to play a crucial role in bridging the gap towards a fully immersive metaverse experience. Current smart glasses like the Ray-Ban Stories offer some functionalities, but they need to improve on display quality, battery life, and privacy protections to meet the requirements for true metaverse integration.
In the coming years, technology giants like Meta are working on innovative projects, such as brain-computer interface technology, to further enhance the capabilities of smart glasses and eventually enable immersive metaverse experiences effortlessly.
