Are Australians short sighted about smart glasses?

Australian market research firm Telsyte recently published the results of its Smartphone & Wearable Devices Market Study 2018-2022.

It provided data on past and predicted uptake of all the usual suspects, established and emerging: smartphones, smart watches, Apple Airpods, “a key companion to the iPhone” according to Telsyte. (It estimates more than 800,000 AirPods have been sold in Australia since their launch at the end of 2016.)

Telsyte also reported “Other potential wearable categories, such as smart glasses are gaining interest from Australians.” It said 30 percent of survey respondents were aware of smart glasses, and 20 percent showed signs of being interested in buying one, “especially if the design is slim and light (like sunglasses) and it is priced similarly to a smartphone or tablet.”

We’re not talking here about eye-enclosing virtual reality headsets, simply glasses that incorporate a camera and the ability to present information in wearer’s field of vision.

Such smart glasses are very much an emerging category and Telsyte’s findings beg the question: just what were respondents ‘aware of’ or ‘interested in buying’?

I put this question to Telsyte and managing director Foad Fadaghi responded as follows. “We showed the image of Google Glass (given it’s the only one out) in the consumer survey question, and described the concept. The things people most interested in doing with them (in descending order) were: take photos; read & reply to messages; navigation; record videos; make calls.”

Note that there is nothing here that you cannot do with a smartphone. It just might be a bit easier with a heads up display.

I’d suggest that this is really doing smart glasses an injustice and barely scratching the surface of their real potential, although there have been many suggestions that this potential lies in the workplace not the consumer market.

Smart applications for smart glasses
And just as applications drove the uptake of smartphones so too will they drive the uptake of smart glasses: applications that really exploit smart glasses’ ability to combine a real world view with digital information.

Take for example the Epson Moverio BT300 — Google Glass is not the only smart glass available — introduced into Australia in June 2017 along with an app store.

Epson likened the maturity of the BT-300 to that of the iPhone before launch of the App Store. In the year since its rise has hardly been meteoric: there are now almost 150 apps on the app store but the product is a long way from being a household name.

Epson saw a key early application as being to assist drone pilots, and at the Australian launch demonstrated several drones that had integrated the BT-300 so that the pilot could get a heads-up display of information from the drone, including the view through its camera, while maintaining eye contact with the drone (a regulatory requirement).

The Epson smart glasses were also being used at the opera to display the English language surtitles commonly displayed above the stage – with the advantage that the wearer does not need to take their eyes off the performers to read the words.

At $1200 a pair you’d have to be a pretty serious opera buff to buy a pair, but you’d probably be more than happy to spend a few dollars more on your opera ticket to rent one.

Sight for the vision impaired
Another application that well demonstrates how applications drive the uptake of smart glasses comes from US company Aira.

Earlier this year Aira brought to Australia and New Zealand its smart-glasses based service that provides remote assistance to the blind and vision impaired via a pair of camera-equipped glasses, and a mobile network.

The Aira system comprises the glasses, which communicate via WiFi with an AT&T MiFi pocket hotspot. This incorporates an AT&T global sim so it works out of the box on mobile networks worldwide (It can use all three Australian networks.)

When the user needs visual assistance they tap the glasses. This alerts an Aira assistant via a smartphone app. The assistant then goes to their PC and pulls up the Aira dashboard that gives them access to the camera signal and a Google map showing the wearer’s location. The assistant can provide the wearer with whatever assistance they need: navigation, shopping or even cooking.

The service is being offered in Australia through Vision Australia at $89 for 100 minutes per month. Service is available 24 x 7.

These are just a few examples, but I think the message is clear. Smart glasses are on the cusp of large-scale adoption, driven by a whole range of applications yet to emerge.

I’m actually rather surprised it has not happened faster. I just wish Telsyte had explored a few more innovative smart glasses applications in its survey: it might have helped generate more awareness of and interest in the potential of smart glasses in Australia.

And we haven’t even mentioned the potential workplace applications for smart glasses — seen by many as by far the largest market for the technology.