Smart glasses: no longer stuck in the past, but looking at a future revival

Author: Anshu Goel, Lead Analyst Digital Consumer Research, GSMA Intelligence

For a decade or so, consumer devices have had marginal innovation that was largely confined to enhancements in fundamental smartphone features (e.g. battery, cameras, OS). However, we are now seeing a new wave of device innovation spanning different areas, as discussed in our recent report – the first of GSMA Intelligence's new Industry Checkpoint series. 

The report considers four major developments in the last six months: innovation expanding beyond smartphones to wearables and the smart home; smart glasses seeing a revival; chipmakers intensifying efforts with generative AI; and direct-to-device strategies increasingly becoming a regional play. From these, the one device innovation that I am particularly excited about is the resurgence of smart glasses.

Smart glasses were once seen as dorky and uncool

Smart glasses were first brought into public consciousness by Google’s launch of its ‘Google Glass’ smart glasses in early 2014. Far from being hailed as a revolutionary new device by consumers as Google might have hoped, these smart glasses faced a barrage of criticism particularly around privacy concerns and their unappealing looks but also their steep price tag at $1500 in the US. Google later pivoted to enterprise use for Google Glass (where progress again remained below expectations) before abandoning the product in early 2023.

Like the phoenix smart glasses look to rise again

As Google lost love for its Google Glass, Meta, which had entered this product category around a year earlier (with Ray-Ban Stories) as part of its long-standing extended reality ambitions, was pressing ahead launching in Q3 2023 its latest iteration of smart glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta. Looking stylish, light weight, priced right and integrated with Meta’s popular social media apps these smart glasses turned out to be a breakout hit. According to the latest figures from Meta it has sold 2 million pairs of these smart glasses since their debut. In part motivated by the traction that Meta’s smart glasses were getting with consumers, several other firms have also launched their own versions including names such as Brilliant Labs, Even Realities and Halliday. Further, Apple is reportedly working on its own smart glasses possibly for a 2026 release, and Google at its I/O earlier this year announced that it will be resurrecting its Google Glass in partnership with Warby Parker for release post 2025.

Why this surge in interest in smart glasses, and why now?

The current resurrection of smart glasses is due to the convergence of numerous factors including improvements in next-generation connectivity, cloud advances, component miniaturisation (while also improving performance and efficiency), consumers being more accustomed to wearables, smartphones (which most smart glasses lean on) becoming ever more powerful, and tech companies’ understanding of the importance of device ergonomics and aesthetics. But the story doesn’t end here without mentioning the lead factor in this resurrection – the emergence of generative AI technology. This tech allows for new multi-modal, intelligent, hyper-personalised and contextual services and experiences on smart glasses that were just not possible before, and as part of this innovation genAI also opens up new possibilities for the user-smart glasses interface.

Is a platform shift in the offing from the smartphone to smart glasses?

Most smart glasses today use the smartphone for their connectivity to mobile networks and to offload the bulk of their computing needs. Accounting for factors like smart glasses component advances and increased computing needs to deliver ever advanced consumer experiences, this is still likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future considering smart glasses constraints such as keeping them looking appealing to wear, ensuring they are light weight and keeping heat build-up in the frame to minimal. 

Further, even beyond these ergonomic factors it will be a while before smart glasses can match the display advances of smartphone screens (such as display fidelity, and FOV especially considering the advances in foldables) and surpass the benefits that smartphone’s touch-based interface brings to many user interactions (across speed, accuracy and convenience). Smart glasses symbiotic relationship with smartphones means that OEMs on both sides should ensure close collaboration across technical, accessibility and other service aspects to help deliver an innovative and seamless user experience for consumers.

Smart glasses could be the breakout device for XR

XR adoption has been languishing among consumers despite some amazing hardware advances like Apple’s Vision Pro coming to the market. According to our GSMA Intelligence’s consumer survey, on average, just 5% of consumers own an XR headset (which includes augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality). Lack of appealing content, especially beyond gaming, is a key barrier but also the ergonomics of XR headsets still do not sit well with consumers. 

Smart glasses help overcome the form factor barrier and while several of them today don’t have an XR (here AR) element, that is very much the direction of travel. For example, the upcoming smart glasses from Meta, Google and Apple are all expected to incorporate an AR display. And while these are not full-fledged XR capabilities we are looking at here, the important point is that these and other such AR-Lite smart glasses should help noticeably widen consumer access to XR experiences. Further, most applications on smart glasses are likely going to be in the non-gaming category with many of them targeting day-to-day consumer activities like information retrieval, navigation, taking photos and videos and reading notifications – this fact should help consumers see the value that XR can add to their daily lives helping better entrench it in the consumer market.

Operators should see benefits from core connectivity to bundling

As smart glasses expand their functionalities and onboard AR capability, operators could benefit from upselling customers to higher data plans while exploiting the use of advanced network capabilities such as tariffs guaranteeing low latency or tariffs promising superior uplink. In terms of bundling, per our consumer survey a notable 40% of mobile contract subscribers either have or are interested in adding wearables to their mobile subscriptions. The mainstreaming of smart glasses should enhance the opportunity for operators to sell wearable bundles, and we may see more and more operators upselling mobile plans using wearables (LG Uplus is an example of an operator using wearables to entice customers to pricier mobile plans).