By Sukanya Mandal
The next phone will not fit in your pocket but will sit on your face, look like normal glasses, and seamlessly integrate AI, connectivity, and display technologies into the world you see. Smart glasses have moved from the realm of the futuristic to the next big thing in personal computers, and India is in an unusually good position to drive this revolution forward.
The Global Shift Towards Smart Glasses
For the last decade or so, the world of personal computers has been dominated by the upgrade cycle of smartphones – improved cameras, more brilliant displays, and marginally faster processors. The innovation excitement has moved on to other areas, and for the big technology companies of the world, the race for what comes after the smartphone is now fully focused on glasses.
A growing number of people, from founders and analysts to designers, now see the next big personal computer as the inevitable evolution of the smartphone and not as something peripheral or complementary to the smartphone. The reasoning is logical – computing devices have been shrinking in size, becoming more contextual, and integrating more with the human senses, and the device that will sit at eye level, see what you see, and hear what you hear will eventually become more powerful than the device in your hand.
Why Glasses Can Outgrow The Phone
There are three factors which are coming together to make glasses a viable alternative to the phone as a PC.
The first factor is that smart glasses are an AI-native, not an app-native, technology. Smartphones are centred on grids of icons, while smart glasses are centred on assistants that understand what is seen and heard. The devices that are coming out now are designed to read signs on the street in real time, to present information in context, and to be conversation partners that react to speech, not touch.
The second factor is that smart glasses make the world their screen. Instead of looking down at a screen, users can look up to see navigation arrows on the road, or to read text on a screen in a meeting, or to follow repair instructions on top of a machine. This spatial computing model is often more intuitive than looking at a flat screen, and it keeps users’ eyes up and out, rather than down and away.
The third factor is that smart glasses are more socially acceptable than headsets. They are designed to be sleek, fashionable, and attractive, while headsets are not. There are hundreds of millions of prescription glasses and sunglasses sold every year, while headsets are not socially acceptable. Making a fraction of that number of glasses smart devices is easier than making everyone wear a headset.
What This Trend Means For India
Back in the days, India largely leapfrogged landlines and went straight to mobile internet. It now seems like India might partially bypass the mature smartphone plateau and might ride an early smart glasses wave, especially in certain consumer and enterprise segments. The Indian market for AR and VR smart glasses is already recording a healthy growth rate, and this is not limited to just gaming. Other sectors like industrial training, healthcare, and logistics are also contributing to this trend.
This opportunity is also reinforced by the larger digital landscape of India. The pace at which 4G and 5G technologies are being rolled out, coupled with digital public infrastructure such as UPI, has already conditioned hundreds of millions of Indians to leapfrog technologies and get accustomed to new interfaces. Smart glasses, which the mass market can afford, can speak Indian languages as the default setting, and can integrate seamlessly into the existing super-app and payment landscape, can find their initial tens of millions of regular users here.
To seize this opportunity, several pieces will need to fall into place. First, device manufacturers will need to drive the cost of the device down while making it indistinguishable from normal eyewear. Second, the AI will need to be sufficiently efficient to work on the device for privacy and latency considerations, while also being sufficiently sophisticated to work on Indian languages, accents, and code-mixed speech. Third, regulators and policymakers will need to update privacy laws for a world where cameras will soon be on every face, rather than on the street corner.
If all these pieces fall into place, the question will not be about the relevance of smart glasses; it will be about the extent to which, when the user reaches for the screen three or four years from now, they will reach for their pockets or simply put on the glasses.
(The author is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE))
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