The smart glasses battle heats up – Apple and OpenAI tipped to be working on Meta-rivaling wearable

Fighting for the crown

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If you’ve been followingApplerumors in recent years, you’ll know that the company reportedly doesn’t just want to just develop mixed-reality headsets like theVision Proand call it a day – it wants to create full-blownsmart glassesthat are indistinguishable from a regular pair of specs.

Before now, that’s mostly remained mostly the realm ofspeculation and leaks. But now, it seems that Apple is taking some solid steps towards understanding what it needs to do to make a set of augmented reality (AR) glasses that can compete with rivals like theRay-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

According toBloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, Apple has started conducting internal surveys of other smart glasses available on the market. The focus groups (codenamed Atlas) are comprised of Apple employees rather than members of the public to keep things as secret as possible (although that hasn’t stopped Gurman’s report) and see various Apple workers log what they like and dislike about existing smart eyewear.

The goal is to help Apple understand what people want from a set of AR glasses and what sorts of features, materials and price points would work for its own device. Whatever the outcome, we may not see the results of these efforts for another few years, but it’s the first sign that Apple is actively looking to break into the world of thebest smart glasses.

OpenAI enters the fray

Rival companies like Meta have found success by offering relatively accessible smart glasses that may not be as technologically advanced as what Apple wants to achieve, but still offer users plenty of useful features for a comparatively affordable price.

And it looks like another one of Apple’s rivals is thinking of entering the smart eyewear market, as Caitlin Kalinowski, the former head of Meta’s AR glasses team, has just joinedChatGPTmakerOpenAIto lead their robotics and consumer hardware division (viaTechCrunch). It’s fueled speculation that OpenAI could be seeking to make its own pair of AR glasses.

Kalinowski previously oversawMeta’s Orion AR prototype, as well as leading the hardware team behind Meta’s virtual reality eyewear for nine years.Posting on LinkedIn, Kalinowski wrote: “In my new role, I will initially focus on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity.”

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That all means competition could soon heat up for the smart glasses crown. With Apple and OpenAI looking to enter within the next few years, it could be a fascinating time if you want to see the next evolution in wearable technology.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he’s learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That’s all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.

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