I just can’t convince myself that AR is the next smartphone revolution. Most of the applications I have heard about feel like the iPhone X demo. Kind of cool they can do that but will I use that more than once to try it?
In addition to the challenges mentioned in the article, you have to convince people who are not wearing glasses that they should start to. And people who are that they should swap their super-light glasses for something heavier, that may be painful for their nose or neck. And that they need one more high tech device in their life to budget for, recharge and replace.
Then what are you really going to use it for? Giving you some meta data on people you see? Name would be nice but how many times in a week do I come across someone I sort of know but can’t remember the name and I would need it? Not many. Identities of complete strangers in the street? Outright creepy. Getting their birthday or the name of their dog? I don’t want my life to look like my linkedin feed where I am flooded with useless notifications about my 1000 contacts work anniversaries.
I am sure there will be some applications, mostly industrial / professional. Certainly the sort of thing you will want to hand over to people at a conference or networking event, where this metadata is super useful to make the right contacts. Or for shopkeepers to recognise their customers in real time and having a full history of their previous purchases. But as a mainstream consumer product, I am still waiting to hear about a convincing use case.
In addition to the challenges mentioned in the article, you have to convince people who are not wearing glasses that they should start to. And people who are that they should swap their super-light glasses for something heavier, that may be painful for their nose or neck. And that they need one more high tech device in their life to budget for, recharge and replace.
Then what are you really going to use it for? Giving you some meta data on people you see? Name would be nice but how many times in a week do I come across someone I sort of know but can’t remember the name and I would need it? Not many. Identities of complete strangers in the street? Outright creepy. Getting their birthday or the name of their dog? I don’t want my life to look like my linkedin feed where I am flooded with useless notifications about my 1000 contacts work anniversaries.
I am sure there will be some applications, mostly industrial / professional. Certainly the sort of thing you will want to hand over to people at a conference or networking event, where this metadata is super useful to make the right contacts. Or for shopkeepers to recognise their customers in real time and having a full history of their previous purchases. But as a mainstream consumer product, I am still waiting to hear about a convincing use case.