Why Are AR Innovators Ignoring the Smartphone?

A few weeks agone, I spent two days at the Augmented Earth Expo (AWE) in Santa Clara, which was total of some really cool demos—and a lot of hype.

Opinions Not surprisingly, those in attendance took a very optimistic view of augmented and virtual reality, only I'k less convinced. While VR headsets and AR glasses have improved in terms of function and size, I don't encounter this big shift from enterprise to consumers in the side by side five years, as the AWE crowd predicts.

The simply existent market for VR outside of gaming and loftier-end theatrical entertainment volition be the enterprise. I talked with many individuals at the evidence who were there to take a serious look at VR solutions for employ in specialized preparation programs and other enterprise applications. I'm non certain if they institute anything, but you tin can tell that these buyers are in a due diligence phase now.

Microsoft's booth—with its HoloLens demo—was packed; some stood in line for as much every bit 90 minutes to experience the AR headset.

HoloLens

Lorraine Bardeen, ‎GM of Windows, HoloLens, and Mixed Reality Experiences Engineering and Product Strategy at Microsoft, did the opening keynote and its focus was actually on the enterprise. So it might be a few years before the average consumer can add a HoloLens to their vacation wish listing.

As for other hardware on display, Kopin showed a new and much smaller, brighter video screen for spectacles and goggles that could bring AR to new head-mounted displays in the hereafter. OBG's stylish AR glasses are also ones to watch, though they are still quite pricey. Meta's glasses, meanwhile, won the best of testify honor, and while I am not sure how consumer-friendly their blueprint is, the company's approach to a mixed reality solution is one to follow. I besides run into potential for Intel'southward Project Alloy, a solid production I got to test a few weeks back.

I empathize the industry'south bias; this group understands the groundbreaking, immersive feel i gets from AR and VR and wants to bring that feel to equally broad an audience as possible. Just cost, complication of setup, and ease of use is not quite at that place however for anything beyond business use. In that location's no killer app for consumers.

What surprised me is that nobody at AWE discussed the idea of delivering AR via a smartphone. Fifty-fifty with the success of Pokemon Go, this oversupply almost exclusively favors AR and VR via some sort of goggles or glasses.

They avoided what would be the elephant in the room—whatsoever Apple might do in the space. I dubiety it has a headset in the works at the moment. ARKit, announced at WWDC, suggests software is Apple's chief focus at present, and that's probably a smart move.

I discover AWE to exist an of import bear witness, but like final year, I all the same came abroad with the conventionalities that AR and VR are still in their infancy and will be niche markets for at least the side by side v years.

About Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is recognized every bit one of the leading industry consultants, analysts, and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Artistic Strategies since 1981 and has provided research to about of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba, and numerous others. Mr. Bajarin is known as a concise, futuristic analyst, credited with predicting the desktop publishing revolution three years before it hit the market, and identifying multimedia as a major tendency in written reports as early on as 1984. He has authored major manufacture studies on PC, portable calculating, …