Last month, Huawei and Gentle Monster jointly created smart glasses EyeWear officially listed in the domestic market, and after the launch of the second sold out. Almost at the same time, Bose Frames on sale in China, Amazon released Echo Frames, and Mutrics as the representative of the emerging independent brands have also begun to expand their smart glasses market from Europe to Asia.
Smart glasses began to appear more and more in daily life, and even Apple, FACEBOOK is also related to product development. This makes people curious, in addition to watches and headphones, smart glasses why suddenly began to fire up? How will the future of smart glasses be?
Failure to try
The start of smart glasses can be traced back to Google Glass in 2012, a device that focused people's imagination on wearable devices. Cameras, displays, speakers, microphones and other components added to make it a real "killer", making it possible to take photos, record videos, play music, answer calls and navigate in a variety of situations. Subsequently, Google Glass enjoyed the praise of the media public opinion on it, Time magazine also named Google Glass as one of the best innovations in 2012.
But Google never thought that reality would pour a pot of cold water on it. 2013, with Google Glass into the consumer market, users found that Google Glass manufacturing technology, application scenarios, etc. is far from the promo to "science fiction", it seems that Google's R & D team did not figure out the positioning of the glasses. What, public opinion began to turn sharply, "Google Glass is the worst product ever" became the media's new argument.
Within a year, Google Glass from the challenge of smartphone innovation into a chicken ribs. 2015, Google left a sentence on the official website "Thank you for exploring with us, the exploration of the journey is not yet over", announced the suspension of the consumer-oriented Google Glass project, at the same time, Google began to develop enterprise-level Google Glass.
Microsoft HoloLens, which has the same reputation as Google Glass, also encountered similar problems. Although the track is different, Microsoft chose mixed reality technology (Mix Reality) as a breakthrough in smart glasses, but this product is still a fairly high degree of integration of the product, can be virtual manipulation in the space, but also in the internal addition of a large number of sensors, chips, etc. So after the release of the product, the price is very high. So after the release of the product, the high price, the function of immature labeling also make it and consumers gradually far away, now the HoloLens choose to play in the industrial manufacturing, product design and other B-end market strengths.
Google and Microsoft's attempts in the consumer market almost announce the fact that most ordinary consumers are most sensitive to the technology and price of smart glasses. Only with mature technology to capture the pain points, with a lower price to capture the market, in order to let the product on the road of continuous iteration and upgrading of consumers, and did not find such a route to the product will not be successful.
Simplify the complexity
And in this route, the wearable field of smart bracelet has made a good demonstration. Obviously, to enter the common people's home, smart glasses also need to find and bracelet similar points in order to open the market, at this time, the audio function began to enter the eyes of major manufacturers.
The combination of glasses and Bluetooth headset is a way out for smart glasses, and it is also the most obvious trend of product changes since this year. In April, Geek's Choice experienced the REVVEZ bone conduction sunglasses developed by AfterShokz. Through the combination of bone conduction technology and sunglasses, this product can be used as sunglasses while riding outdoors and can listen to songs and make phone calls, but in addition to that, this product did not do any technological modification to the lens, making it look similar to ordinary sunglasses in appearance.
Similar changes also appeared in the Huawei X Gentle Monster co-branded glasses and Bose Smart Audio Glasses two products, these two products also have sunglasses models, the difference is that the Huawei X Gentle Monster co-branded glasses also launched a version of the optical lens, but in terms of functionality, these two also chose audio as an entry point, not too much! But in terms of functionality, these two models also choose audio as the entry point, without too many fancy features, more like a combination of Bluetooth headphones and glasses.
The audio function added to the three sunglasses as the shape of the product to find a good entry point, in the outdoors, especially sports, wearing headphones to listen to songs is neither safe nor convenient, through such glasses can be a solution to the two problems, but also reduces the sense of pressure on the ear, so from the function, it found the Bluetooth headset does not excel in the field.
This trend of simplifying functionality stems from the increasing richness and enhancement of smartphone functionality. Cell phone is now a set of life, entertainment, work as one of the strong equipment, both the processor and system integration is very powerful, such a device can support the daily use of all aspects of its algorithms can also support the glasses of such a device, so the advantages of smart glasses are focused on listening, looking at such a core, to avoid the complexity of computing can also be better control of the volume and weight.
Now more and more manufacturers have begun to realize that the relationship between wearable devices and cell phones is complementary rather than alternative. Since the birth of Google Glass, the wearable device form is increasingly diversified, different devices provide different basic capabilities, smart watches to provide sports, health monitoring functions, smart headset to provide voice assistants, call functions, although the phone can also realize these functions, but in the day-to-day use of these devices is not as convenient, which is precisely the rapid development of smart bracelet, watch, headset products important This is the reason for the rapid development of smart bracelets, watches, and headsets.
AR future
The simplification of the function is only the first step, whether it is the use of bone conduction technology or micro-speakers, whether it is the main outdoor sports or diversified fashion, in 2019, the smart glasses field ushered in this round of the new boom, are trying to try to find a new user pain points in a more grounded way.
But obviously, Huawei X Gentle Monster co-branded glasses and Bose smart audio glasses these two pairs of glasses will not be the end of the development of smart glasses, but more like the prototype of the future of AR glasses, as well as manufacturers in the "post-Google Glass era" to return to the starting point of the rethinking. Thinking. This makes us look forward to the next generation of smart glasses with more features, a wider range of usage scenarios, and the ability to support networks and AR.
Nowadays, glasses have been endowed with the functions of smart wearable devices, like Siri in AirPods and Assistant in Google Glass, and they have gradually become the smart assistant closest to the human brain, an "invisible brain".
In June of this year, vivo released an AR smart glasses at MWC in Shanghai to expand entertainment. But the smart glasses need to be used with Vivo's 5G phone, so the exact launch date is still unknown. But according to the introduction, vivo's smart glasses may be connected to the phone through the USB cable to use, will provide gaming, theater, collaborative office, object recognition, facial recognition and other functions.
Then in September this year, HTC officially announced its smart VR glasses product Vive Cosmos will be officially on sale, the domestic price of 5899 yuan, using flip design, support for HTC Vive self-developed inside-out tracking technology, plus since a variety of support for the use of VR PC desktops and laptops, so that users can wear the glasses, realize the reality of the world and the world of work.
Inside-out tracking is a unique feature of the Vive that allows the user to see what's going on in the world of VR.
In addition, Apple is going to launch smart glasses rumors from 2017 has been constant, although there is no physical product, but according to the investment company Digi-Capital and AWE (Augmented World Expo) in May this year on the AR/VR industry insiders survey shows that in the smart glasses list, has not yet launched the smart glasses of Apple actually The survey of AR/VR industry insiders by Augmented World Expo shows that on the smart glasses list, Apple, which has yet to launch smart glasses, has gained 43% industry support, making it the third largest smart glasses platform supported by the industry.
From this point of view, in the future, whether in the domestic or international market, smart glasses will become a major technology players must fight. According to the relevant organizations, in the global context, by the end of 2023, the global AR and VR smart glasses market size is expected to reach 31 billion U.S. dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 13%. And then see our domestic market, there are organizations predict that in 2019 China's smart wearables industry market size will reach 43.3 billion yuan, and even by 2023, will break through 100 billion yuan.