I remain convinced that AR glasses will never ever be mainstream no matter how good the hardware is. They just don't solve any actual problem. Interacting with UI using voice or gesture is just way too hard.

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craftkiller 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

They could still be useful as a dumb display without voice or gesture. Imagine being in an airplane and wanting to use your laptop. You'll be hunched over with terrible posture. With a pair of AR glasses that support displayport alt mode, you could plug in your glasses and sit with proper posture, your screen displayed in front of you as a virtual 40" display, while you touch type on your laptop sitting on the food tray. Perhaps you're in bed and want to watch a movie. You could pop on the glasses, plug in your phone, and enjoy while while fully reclined, achieving the most comfortable least effort movie viewing experience. Maybe you're traveling and staying in hotels where you want to get some work done. Programming on tiny laptop screens sucks if you're opening more than 2 files at a time, but what if you could just pop on your glasses, plug them into your laptop, and program on a virtual 40" display?

My understanding is the current tech is not sharp enough for serious productivity, is too heavy for extended wear, and has a short life due to overdriving tiny OLEDs, so I'm not ready to purchase one yet. But some day those problems will be solved and I'm absolutely going to jump on that.

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sunrunner 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The thought of an airport full of people all seated with perfect posture, all looking ahead but not really seeing, tapping away at their oh-so important work, feels both worse than the current status quo but also somehow no different. Maybe it’s the posture thing.

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stavros 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You can already do this, and I did it last week on my flight with my Xreal Air.

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craftkiller 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah, that's the brand I've been watching most closely. How would you rate the sharpness of the display for text editing / coding? Like if you opened some large code files on your glasses and desktop monitor, and adjusted both their font sizes to have the same legibility + feel, do you fit more text on the glasses or your desktop monitor and by how much?

This is the one aspect that is hard to find info about online. Everyone talks about the weight and what size the virtual display is, but if I am going to seriously use it for productivity then I need at least 3 files open side by side, fully legible, with 100-character-wide lines at the bare minimum to be considered.

Either way, I'm not going to purchase until they solve the longevity problem, but I am curious if the sharpness is at the point where I can stop worrying about it.

	▲	stavros 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's literally a 70" HD display around 4m from your face. All HD displays fit exactly the same amount of text in their 1920x1080 pixels, the only thing that changes is the field of vision the display takes up. I use them to do work, the issue I have is, having owned three pairs (for reasons), the lenses can be hit-or-miss. The pair I own now is more on the miss side, and some part of the lens is blurry. You don't notice it when watching films, but it's noticeable for text. The other two pairs were OK, this one I got less lucky with. This one also seems to tire out my eyes if I wear the glasses for more than an hour, and I don't know why (it might be the blurriness). It's not the focal distance, they did a good job there, it's about 5m as far as I can tell. Anyway, overall I like the glasses. They're worth the 200 € I paid used, but I probably wouldn't pay 400 € for them, I only use them on flights. They'd be great if I watched lots of movies or played games on a Steam Deck, though.

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mrandish 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As someone who's been avidly following and sampling VR/AR since the 90s, in recent years I've changed my opinion. While I'm not as confident as you seem to be, I do now think it probably never goes into widespread all-day consumer use. Although, I do believe certain gaming, entertainment and workplace use cases will become much more common.

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phil21 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I always wished for AR glasses. I described it like playing a MMO with player names overlaid above their heads.

I have an incredibly hard time remembering faces and names. Close to disability level. People I have known for 20 years and interact with monthly can take a bit for me to recall their names and it requires a ton of mental tricks to do so.

I used to go to a decent number of trade shows, and the number of folks who casually knew me and my name but I couldn’t place was embarrassing. And crippling for business purposes.

I always thought if I had someway to overlay a persons name over their head it would level the playing field and allow be to avoid a lot of personal embarrassment.

Now that the future is here I’m not so sure. One of those things I want for me but not for thee.

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basisword 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I can see how this would be beneficial for you. But I also get the feeling that those people would rather you can’t remember their name than have you doing facial recognition on them. It’s one of those solutions to social problems that is so unsocial it just changes the problem. Instead of “that’s the guy that always forgets my name” it becomes “that’s the creep with the AI glasses!” (No offence). One of those is much more preferable.

	▲	phil21 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Totally agree. It only works if you're the only person who has the tech and no one notices you're using it :)

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4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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haijo2 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes it is highly economically inefficient.

People seem to underestimate how wonderful it to be able to touch and tap an interface and how minimal effort is exerted.

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whimsicalism 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

oh i think we will see voice becoming a much more popular interface in the very near future, now that it’s actually getting very good

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haijo2 5 days ago | parent [-]

Highly doubt it. As a species we have gotten accustomed to talking through text as opposed to voice/audio over time.

People prefer it. Pure and simple.

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sunrunner 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's helpful, perhaps even necessary, to differentiate between different kinds of text.

Let's start with text intended to convey information. Good documentation-type text that acts as a one-way communication channel is an example of this. A small number of writers and contributors to something that can be read by thousands or more can be incredibly powerful and can be incredibly information dense and valuable if written well.

Text intended to entertain? Well, that's just art and people will choose to engage in that way when they prefer the medium itself, so that's really just personal preference and enjoyment.

Text as the de-facto replacement for voice/face-to-face feels like something that's been forced into a lot of situations now. It's beneficial (or really required) when it's the only option such as for long-distance communication, and favours slow-changing content. But I think in a lot of cases we've been forced into having to use text over voice for raw human communication (thinking of course about remote working now).

I think text has a lot going for it. It can be incredibly information dense, it's easier for writers to take time to prepare something well, it's persistent, it's searchable, it's easy to make available historically. But I'm not convinced that it's a blanket replacement in every way. As the equivalent of voice it's also just slower.

As for video telephony, well David Foster Wallace had a bit to say about that [1]

[1] https://ochuk.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/my-favorite-pieces-of...

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JambalayaJimbo 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As a species?? You’re just talking about young people. And that’s just because texting was cheap.

Lots of my friends send voice notes these days. I prefer them. Especially if they’re auto transcribed so the person on the other end can choose how to consume them.

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fragilerock 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Then how come in face-to-face interactions people generally communicate using speech rather than text?

Clearly there's a disadvantage to using text in that situation, and I think it's that it almost always takes longer to express thoughts/intents using text. ISTM a sufficiently advanced computer voice interface would have the same advantage.

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haijo2 5 days ago | parent [-]

People communicate with their friends more over text than in person.

Am I really having to explain basic stuff like this? Lmao.

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sunrunner 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Because it allows people to communicate when they're not in close physical proximity. Would you rather go out to dinner with friends and just speak to each other or sit there and type your conversation out in a WhatsApp group chat?

It's a convenience/necessity thing, pure and simple.

	▲	haijo2 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Theres benefits to be had when interacting with REAL people in person. Zero benefit interacting with voice with an AI. Pure and simple. Nobody cares about an agent when they are the principal - this is not remotely the same as interfacing with a human that is valued much higher.

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fragilerock 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I said was talking about face-to-face (or 'in person' as you put it) communication. You're absolutely right that over long-distance people prefer to communicate by text, but in person people prefer to communicate by speech so that's exactly my point: there are at least some contexts in which people prefer speech.

I guess I could also follow suit and return your weird toxic/patronising insult here too since you clearly didn't understand my original comment, but perhaps it would be nicer if we didn't do that?

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mintplant 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I want an HUD mini-map that displays directions for navigation. That solves an actual problem for me (having no sense of direction).

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giobox 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not so sure there is no problem to be solved. Being able to see the world around me annotated visually has massive potential - I for one would love the Google Translate camera feature that lets you translate text seen by the camera in real time and overlay the translated text on the document but built into a pair of normal looking glasses, freeing my hands etc.

While I accept some will take issue with calling it an "AR device", the current Meta RayBans have sold very well with major YoY growth and I only expect them to get more popular as they get more capable and add more "AR"-esque features in future versions. I see them already as a first step on road to real AR products much, much more than I do the Quest line.

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jpfromlondon 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They will become mainstream because the advertising industrial complex will see the opportunity to have a paid subscription model to reality with ads from the moment you open your eyes to those on the free-tier.

Realtime on-demand satnav in ar, onscreen messaging, news updates etc, the facial recognition is just one aspect, having automatic connections with people looking at you across a room signifying interest.

This is dystopian to me but I don't see how it doesn't eventually become mainstream.