Smartwatches are so five years ago. What ever happened to the idea of “fashionable, yet functional”? Sure, you can have all that technology strapped to your wrist but that requires you to, you know, actually look down at your wrist. I thought the promise of technology was that I didn’t need to do anything so that I could one day end up like one of those human lumps chained to a chair in Wall-E. How do we do that? Well, we insert technology directly into my eyes.
Or maybe nothing as drastic as that. Probably just a few centimeters away from my eyes would be more than enough, right? That’s the idea behind Facebook’s smart glasses, which will be released under the Ray Ban brand next year. So least you know you’ll be looking fresh and fashion-forward while doing…whatever these glasses do. Actually, what exactly will these “smart glasses” do? It’s still a little up in the air but following Facebook’s press conference last night, we have a slight inkling on how they’ll work.
Facebook is classifying these glasses as an Augmented Reality system that won’t feature any kind of integrated display in the lenses. “We’re passionate about exploring devices that can give people better ways to connect with those closest to them. Wearables have the potential to do that. With EssilorLuxottica (makes of Ray ban) we have an equally ambitious partner who’ll lend their expertise and world-class brand catalogue to the first truly fashionable smart glasses,” said Andrew Bosworth, VP of Facebook’s Reality Labs division, in a statement to The Verge.
Beyond the incredibly vague statements around the design of the Facebook smart glasses… we actually don’t have a clue as to what they’ll do, what they’ll look like, how much they’ll cost or even what they’re called. All we know is that they’re coming in 2021 and I suppose it’s just interesting to note that Facebook is doing its best to keep us all tethered to their platform for as much of the day as possible. At least you’ll look good while being absorbed into company’s assets.