Sitting at 850 miles apart, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) have announced a closer vision into future computing. Facebook announced its plans to introduce Augmented Reality (AR) Smart Glasses. The smart glasses would be developed to concentrate on people when compared to connecting the user to a computer. According to CNBC, Facebook plans to rope in Luxottica for the development of AR Ray-Ban Glasses with an aim for production between 2023 and 2025. It also plans to power the Glasses with AI voice assistant.
Amazon forays into smart glasses
Amazon coolly forayed into the market for smart glasses. The company’s smart glasses feature a speaker and microphone to provide access to Alexa. Introductory price for lightweight Eco Frames in the US is set at $180. However, the smart glasses do not have AR feature for now.
Fierce competition for Amazon
Amazon would face stiff competition going forward. The AR glasses shipments would touch 2.7 million in the year 2023 from over 150,000 in 2019. According to CSS insights, the demand for AR and VR devices are expected to grow at an annual rate of 76%. The market for these devices is expected to reach $13 billion by the year 2023.
With this announcement, both the tech giants are focusing on the face for future computing. It would be next battleground after the era of tablets, smartphones, and connected devices such as a watch. Interestingly, both tech giants do not have their operating system. It takes time for them to set up computing gateways.
Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, said he has been hinting that AR will be the next computing platform that would attract a lot of investment. Facebook has acquired a gesture recognition start-up – CTRL Labs for a sum between $500 million and $1 billion. The technology of CTRL Labs helps to control the glasses with no need for a mouse, touch screen, or a keyboard.
Despite failing to win the customers after the launch of Google Glasses in 2013, Google has found the market for its products on factory shop floors. Workers get hands-free access to the computer with the help of Google Glasses.
