> it’s obvious that the devices will get better, lighter and cheaper, but much less obvious whether that’s enough. How many people will care?
I don't know the answer to that question, but I certainly won't care. I am not in any of the demographic groups that can currently get value from it.
VR/AR is a thing that covers several niche use cases very well, but it's hard to see how it would be useful enough generally that it would become a common consumer item.
I could see it becoming popular amongst gamers, and its utility in specific things like industrial use are pretty clear, but most people aren't gamers, and most people don't need to do industrial sorts of things in their daily lives.
I don't see it taking the role of smartphones in most people's lives even if the gear becomes no more onerous than a pair of glasses for a number of reasons, but if the tech does reach that point, I could see a large minority of people swapping to them.
But who knows? What I'm very confident about is that this won't be a mainstream thing for a nontrivial number of years.
Maybe I'm not a visionary, but I can't think of a mainstream use case. Maybe as a telepresence thing for better situational awareness? But I think for a lot of things the tech we have today is "good enough". I'm not going to jack into cyberspace to pay my water bill "in person" when I can use an app or website with less friction.
Just imagine a smart phone but the screen is holograms you can interact with.
Apps can be any size of your choosing because you're not limited by a physical screen. Google maps can be a wall sized 2D map or a fully 3D model in you hand.
Its not that hard to consider why AR apps would be compelling once the basic interface is sorted out.
I can only see it working if you have like, a telepresence device on the other end. An unpopular example might be a robot solider with its “handler” halfway around the globe.
Maybe a “better” example would be of the same ilk, a robot in space repairing something with the handler back on earth controlling the thing.
The radio delay alone will cause vection, I would think, and unless near-term technology advances include something like an ansible I don't see a way around that.
AR will be as big as smartphones; imagine wait staff seeing people’s orders above their heads, convention attendees seeing virtual name tags, mechanics seeing the engine details overlaid, phone repair personnel seeing the step by step instructions, me seeing arrows pointing to where I left my keys, and so forth. But it has to be on a comfort level of “wearing glasses”, I think.
I think something around the bulk and weight factor of good ski goggles (about 150g, as compared to the Quest 3's 722g and more if you want a headstrap that's actually comfortable) would be enough for AR devices to start seeing regular professional use (mechanics, plumbers, and so on) and to start showing up as mass-market media consumption/2D-game-console-replacement devices. At that point it would be comfortable enough for non-enthusiasts to wear for a few hours at a time without complaints.
Ok, if there were glasses I could put on that would in AR show me where everything I have is from the last time I put it down, as an ADHDer that would be a gamechanger. But, I also have zero faith in tech companies letting anything of that sort be private.
All of your examples except for the keys are the sorts of niche applications I think could work. But they aren't things that will make the average person want to incorporate them into their every-minute life.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I certainly won't care. I am not in any of the demographic groups that can currently get value from it.
VR/AR is a thing that covers several niche use cases very well, but it's hard to see how it would be useful enough generally that it would become a common consumer item.
I could see it becoming popular amongst gamers, and its utility in specific things like industrial use are pretty clear, but most people aren't gamers, and most people don't need to do industrial sorts of things in their daily lives.
I don't see it taking the role of smartphones in most people's lives even if the gear becomes no more onerous than a pair of glasses for a number of reasons, but if the tech does reach that point, I could see a large minority of people swapping to them.
But who knows? What I'm very confident about is that this won't be a mainstream thing for a nontrivial number of years.