Augmented Reality is the Future

Introduction#

The best definition that I can come up with for Augmented Reality (AR) is an experience that overlays real people, places, or things in the world with additional information through the use of a device that primarily relies on eyesight. There are some existing apps out there that provide an AR experience. For instance, IKEA has an app that helps you place products from their store in your home through the use of AR technology. Pokemon Go is a mobile game that also uses AR technology.

While AR has been around for several years, it hasn't really taken off in a big way. At one point, Google did try to bring AR glasses into the mainstream, but there was a lot of pushback with those glasses with concerns around privacy as well as the price point for getting access to the glasses in the first place. However, that is going to change. Companies like Apple and Facebook are investing a lot of money into bringing smart glasses with AR technology to consumers. This is going to crack open a whole new generation of technology that will overtake how we interact with the world around us.

Visions of the Future#

When smart/AR glasses start entering the market, a future is going to exist with lots of new ideas, new jobs, and new experiences. There are a lot of things that I predict are going to happen. Here are just some of those things.

I believe that AR glasses are going to take us from physically interacting with our phones all the time to instead wearing our glasses and using gestures and voice commands to do everything we would normally do on our phones. The phone is still going to be something that we will need to have on our person for the glasses to work as the phone will handle all of the heavy lifting in terms of processing power and data transmission. This will be similar to having a smartwatch that relies on being connected to a phone. I envision that this experience will get so advanced that a couple of decades from now, employees won't be given a laptop to use when they first join a new company. Instead, they will just be given smart glasses. From there they will be able to do everything they need to do including simulating the typing on a keyboard from any flat surface. At that point though, typing on a keyboard might not even be something that anybody actually does anymore due to dictation and gestures being the primary input methods.

The experiences with AR glasses are going to vastly improve the things we do every day. For example, I don't expect that we will be driving ourselves too much longer into the future, but while autonomous vehicles are still working out the kinks, everybody still relies on map apps to provide them with directions. Interacting with the app on your phone works well but presents problems such as that you have to take your eyes off the road sometimes to look at information and visuals on your phone when following directions. Most of the time this happens for a split second but it's not an ideal experience and it also makes it difficult to make changes to your route while driving. Enter smart/AR glasses and your experience could dramatically change. With your glasses on while you're driving and two hands on the wheel, you will be able to dictate to your glasses to give you directions to your destination. Your glasses would then be able to provide you with directions through the use of AR technology right in the glasses. You would be able to see the road as well as turn-by-turn arrows and information in real-time. Additional information such as upcoming construction, traffic congestion, speed traps, expected arrival time, etc. would also be available to you all while keeping your eyes on the road.

Handling the giving of directions to a destination is what I consider an experience that will be standard in the first versions of smart/AR glasses because it augments an app that we all use and a blueprint for the experience already exists. However, with the introduction of AR technology into the mainstream, so will the introduction be for experience designers to architect new AR experiences that are fluid and pleasant to the user. All of a sudden just like when mobile apps came into the fold, there will be AR user experience patterns that are developed. You also better believe that eventually marketing companies will figure out how to put advertisements into AR experiences. It will get to a point where you'll see something that your AR glasses will recognize and then an ad will materialize that will try and get you to buy whatever it is. At that point, you'll be able to purchase the item using just your voice all through the glasses.

There will of course be issues and problems that will have to be addressed with smart/AR glasses. Will there be a camera on the glasses? If there is a camera, how do you handle privacy concerns? Will AR glasses impact the health of your eyes negatively over time? Can you actually pay attention to the world in front of you while also seeing AR experiences at the same time? Can people who already wear prescription glasses also use smart/AR glasses? These are some questions that will need to be answered to prevent the failure of adoption of such a technology.

Everything is already in place#

I believe that AR technology is going to explode in terms of consumerism and usage because all the technology already exists and the infrastructure is already in place to support it. All it needs to take the next step is the right type of device to provide the experiences users will expect.

Right now, all major technology companies have some type of digital assistant that users use whether it be Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, or Amazon's Alexa. Voice recognition is getting better every day with these digital assistants. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have made those digital assistants even smarter.

Cloud infrastructure has become so prevalent that most companies are using Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft Azure for at least some if not all of their computing and storage which has the ability to be available all over the world with very fast speeds. Over the last year, 5G has been implemented into most major cities making internet speeds ridiculous for mobile devices and is continuing to spread in terms of availability. Another very important technology that exists is Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) which for the most part is using lasers to measure distance.

All of these technologies together and the infrastructure provide a world that has no constraints holding back AR technology from existing in a meaningful way. I expect that companies like Apple and Facebook will produce their own versions of smart/AR glasses soon that will eventually capitalize on this existing infrastructure and technology and then as a result there will be an unlimited amount of user experiences that will be developed by companies. Software engineers that specialize in AR development will be in huge demand at that point.

It's sooner than you think#

At this point, autonomous vehicles have been being developed for several years now and yet it still feels like we're at least 20 years away from cars fully driving themselves everywhere without a human sitting in the driver's seat at all times. This won't be the case with smart/AR glasses. Companies like Apple have been developing these smart glasses for at least a couple of years now and even with broad speculations as to when these glasses will be released, we're looking at sometime between now and possibly 2024 for the first version to be released. What that means is that within the next 5 years, AR technology is going to make a giant leap in terms of usage by the masses and smart/AR glasses are going to be the driver that makes that happen.

Conclusion#

I'm obviously making bold predictions as to what's actually going to happen. I don't really know if any of these things will happen and it's also possible that companies repeat the same mistakes that Google made with their AR glasses. However, I'm seeing the technology developing and I'm seeing the stars align in terms of where things are heading. From my perspective, this going to have a massive impact on society and provide a new way that the future of technology makes our lives better. So get excited because the future is almost here.