Executive Summary
Back in August, ARtillery Intelligence’s monthly report focused on smart glasses. Given new standards set by Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses, Xreal Air 2 and others, the device class is seeing demand inflections. Much of this success is built on the principle of “lite AR.”
After a decade of chasing “heavy AR” ambitions, many XR players got realistic about the technology’s shortcomings. They’ve consequently designed today’s best version of the technology, rather than trying and failing to achieve overly-ambitious ends. This meant simple non-interactive visuals… or no visuals at all.
Following that narrative, we now embark upon the next chapter: heavy AR. This is defined by visual AR that understands and interacts with its surroundings in dimensionally-accurate ways, otherwise known as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). These scene-interaction and dimensionality functions are computationally intensive, which makes heavy AR challenging… or “ambitious” as characterized above.
These challenges boil down to design tradeoffs. For example, SLAM requires ample graphical processing, power, and display systems, which collectively amplify device cost and bulk. Those two attributes, in turn, preclude a large segment of the market: consumers.
Though these challenges persist, we’re starting to see notable evolution. In the past quarter alone, hardware from Snap and Meta advanced heavy AR standards. Snap Spectacles offer a dimensional AR experience in a package that – though bulky – is a step closer to something that’s stylistically viable for consumer markets. For now, it’s only available to developers as Snap knows we’re not there yet.
Meanwhile, Meta’s Orion is a glimpse of the future, seen through the extent of AR technical achievement that’s possible today. Though it’s a working prototype for internal development, it demonstrates to the broader public where AR is headed, and what’s possible.
With that contextual backdrop, this report will focus on seethrough AR glasses-based heavy AR. It will do so on mostly business – rather than technical – levels. Where is it today, and where is it headed? What recent market events define that trajectory? And who’s doing what to advance and accelerate the field? We’ll tackle these questions through numbers and narratives, with the end goal – as always – to empower you with a knowledge edge.
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MethodologyThis report highlights ARtillery Intelligence viewpoints, gathered from its daily in-depth market coverage. To support narratives, data are cited throughout the report. These include ARtillery Intelligence’s original data, as well as that of third parties. Sources are linked or attributed in each case.
For market sizing and forecasting, ARtillery Intelligence follows disciplined best practices, developed and reinforced through its principles’ 18 years in tech-sector research and intelligence. This includes the past 8 years covering AR & VR exclusively, as seen in research reports and daily reporting.
This approach primarily applies a bottom-up forecasting analysis, secondarily vetted against a top-down analysis. Together, confidence is achieved through triangulating figures in a disciplined way. More about our methodology can be seen here, and market-sizing credentials can be seen here.
Disclosure & Ethics StatementUnless specified in its stock ownership disclosures, ARtillery Intelligence has no financial stake in the companies mentioned in its reports. The production of this report likewise wasn’t commissioned. With all market sizing, ARtillery Intelligence remains independent of players and practitioners in the sectors it covers, thus mitigating bias in industry revenue calculations and projections. ARtillery Intelligence’s disclosures, stock ownership, and ethics policy can be seen in full here.
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