Do you remember VR? It’s that thing where you put on a headset and … You remember vr, right? If you No Remember VR, you couldn’t be blamed, as things turned from the way back in 2023, and right now VR seems to be on the back burner, cold, with the heat off, while its sister Te Techniko, XR/AR is previous and central, getting the full attention from Chef’s Michelin-star’s attention.
This is not just a feeling; Is numbers to endure that trend. A year over a year, Meta said last week that Meta Reality Lab sales Search sales. What makes this trend interesting is not just the precipitated fall of search sales; is the fact that at the same time sales of its increasingly popular Ray-Ban-intelligent eyeglasses seems to be through the roof. According to Meta CFO Susan Li, Reality Labs’ income loss was “due to lower meta-search sales, which were partially offset by increased sales of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.” That growth of income, by the way, is apparently Triple year after year.
If I read in the break of him, search sales are tanks, and smart glasses save the day. Or I guess that’s one way to look at it. Another way to see this trend is that VR is sliding, and smart glasses (and the potential for XR/ar within them) picks up the pieces. That may sound sensational, but it also has a perfect sense in other ways.
Don’t deceive me, I actually like VR/XR headphones; I think the Quest 3s It is the perfect headset for the moment, as it is lightweight, accessible, and still offers a full XR experience that will satisfy established XR/VR fans and impress beginners. Having said that, they are still a burden. Stretching a headset to your face is generally invasive and not exactly what most would call a pleasant time. Even the Search 3Who is light and generally comfortable compared to the competition, wears your eyes, your face and your poor, sweaty skin after a while.
As much as I love the search for what it could be is difficult to reconcile that with what it is now. Intelligent glasses, on the other hand, do not share these problems. Sure, Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses don’t even do half of what we want at this time they don’t even have a screen in them-but they are a light touch. If you want a taste of smart functions like Bluetooth audio, vocal assistant, and some (very hit) Ai, then you can catch a couple, hit them on your face and carry them for hours without feeling that you have wearing anything other than a regular pair of glasses.
The lesson here is that it is better to do some of what you would expect (enough to qualify as a good start) than to try to do everything At the expense of an awkward shape -factor, and that shines when it comes to smart glasses against VR headquarters. Not only that, but smart glasses, though still very work, are also much more useful in your daily day. Because of their light shape -factor, you can actually bring them into the real world and use them for real things like taking photos or calling your mother. Which is a reminder: you have to call your mom, smart glasses or not.
No matter where your priorities or loyalties lie, the tides, as they often do in emerging technology, seem to turn. In addition, all of the latest rhetoric Around intelligent glasses and XR/AR by Tim Cook by Apple and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta must give you some indication in which way these waters flow. If you are a fan of smart glasses, you have nothing to worry, but if you have been excited to realize our full VR, you may have to wait a little longer.
