The Future of AR Beyond the Vision Pro Is Already Brewing
Plenty of signs point to where the future is heading for AR glasses, smaller headsets, and new interfaces. But all these technologies will need our own phones and computers to work better with them.
Avegant's prototype wireless AR glasses (left) next to Meta's Ray-Bans. Glasses are capable of doing more while looking nearly normal.
I recently flew out to Long Beach, California, for the AWE augmented and virtual reality conference, but I left my mixed reality VR devices — the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 — back in New Jersey. Instead I took two pairs of smart glasses: Meta's Ray-Bans and Xreal's Air 2 Pro . I took photos and made calls with the Ray-Bans. I watched movies on the plane with Xreal. And I didn't miss those chunky VR goggles one bit.
VR headsets have never really caught on as massive mainstream devices, though their popularity for older kids, or for fitness or gaming, keeps creeping forward. A few problems they still have: They're big, they're heavy, and they mostly shut out the world. Recent VR headsets, like the Vision Pro and Quest 3, have started blending camera feeds of the outside world with VR to create mixed reality that feels like it's overlaid onto reality, creating more of a connection to the world outside the goggles, but they're still relatively big and awkward to wear.
