About how our life changes after usable AR hardware release.
Hey there. This article will tell you about my thoughts where AR and VR technologies are today and what we could see in the future.
I think there were a lot of other articles that tell slightly the same ideas, so I’ll try to cover some topics that would be actually useful for you, the one who’s looking into their screen and reading this.
Navigation
We could get detailed path to a desired place. Efficient UI tells us how long will it take, where we should be attentive since there’s traffic out there.
In addition to outside navigation we could see more and more products that use indoor maps to enrich experience in big shopping malls or/and airports. Especially when you are first time in such place, but you want to save your time and get what you need in short period of time. This is not a fantastic, though, because it’s already been implemented by corporations and startups. And you can use it today.
Entertainment
Since we have comfortable headset we can wear it all day and consume a lot of content during commutes, walks or just for fun when we are on our favourite couch. Youtube, tiktok, instagram whatever is available on the headset, you don’t even need to hold your phone anymore.
QR Codes
QR codes will definitely get new life. Technology itself is very good, but we don’t have proper hardware for it yet. Just imagine, you’re waiting for a bus on a stop, or in shopping mall and random ad board caught your eye. You just come closer to it and give a consent to your headset to scan and open content for this QR, observe or save to the folder “Check later”. I think this user experience is cool. However I can imagine how many companies will start use this QRs to get potential customers attention so all ad banners would look very messy.
Education
I’m convinced that AR headset increased joy of education in many fields, since we could make notes, hold tons of books, articles and place them in our AR-ED environment. Imagine it like a desktop but it is on the wall, on the floor or where it fits you. And the most important that you could collaborate with others, or just keep it private. You could put a sticker on the wall, with only difference this sticker appears in AR environment exclusively, so you don’t need to waste paper or annoy people. Similar app exists on Mac computers, is called Stickies.
Notes
Notes that are literally always in front of your nose. You even can imagine how many different types of notes you could create. Meal ideas, todos, buy lists, and many many other stuff.
Fitness
Smart watches is good, though headset is better since we don’t need to bother to communicate with them due to interface that always ahead of you. Like in navigation we can check where we run, ride or climb. Heartbeat, pace, how long workout’s been going and so on and so on.
BUT…
There’s one huge but which has gone through this article is today’s hardware*.* Since all things I mentioned earlier have already been implemented and can be run on almost any smartphone today. However, let be honest, you won’t be holding your phone in front of your face daily, no matter how great the idea or solution is, it is simply challenging to do so. So, we need a headset and not this huge ugly hardware that companies have been released for several years, but something small and light like ray ban glasses. Just imagine how cool will it be to have powerful computer that can be manipulated by your vision and looks not like a tool from cyberpunk.
It is a challenging task which was implemented by Google by the way many years ago. That product was ahead of its time, though it didn’t find its audience since it was too expensive, had a lack of long life battery and a lack of a reasonable and useful software. At that point you could make calls, respond on messages check calendar. It was mostly as a toy, as well as any AR/VR headsets today. With only difference, Google glasses was actually glasses, so their weight was almost identical to usual glasses. Sure, today’s hardware allows us to launch very sophisticated applications and games, yet it’s very uncomfortable for daily using.
I believe companies need this. Because according to different web portals we spend about 3–5 hours in front of our smartphone, and let’s be honest, only a few percent use their phone for work or earning money. Most of us use it as a toy. Companies already make TONS of money which are generated by our attention. It’s hard to realize how much more money they could make if we spent twice as much time in front of glasses display.
I’m curious how technologies are going to be developed in that way, but yet I haven’t found anything that really worth attention. There rumors around Apple’s new headset which probably appears on WWDC that happens on 5th of June. However I hope that they won’t show us this product and I believe I write an article why I think it is bad idea to release it these days.
