Smart glasses and other wearables still haven't taken over the market. Watches continue to lead the pack among wearable technology, with other forms not accepted at the moment.
Vuzix wants to change this narrative, however. At the Consumer Electronics Show, it is set to introduce a product that features help from Amazon.
Vuzix Augmented Reality Smart Glasses Powered By Amazon's Alexa
Vuzix will be unveiling smart glasses that are powered by Amazon's Alexa. Just like the iPhone X, the cost of the smart glasses will be $1,000. This cost is aimed at professional consumers or "prosumers" that include business people or golfers. It's hoping to get the cost of the glasses down to under $500 by 2019.
Alexa will be one of the main features of the product. Instead of being able to touch a screen, consumers will have to activate features on the glasses through commands. Vuzix will make use of augmented reality, which still hasn't become prevalent among consumers.
Vuzix is one of the leading suppliers of smart glasses and augmented reality products. The company says that consumers have been craving more fashionable smart glasses since the early 2000s. Recent advances in processing power being able to be fit into smaller packages and 5G connectivity have allowed the company to make a more consumer-oriented product.
The Challenges In Selling Smart Glasses
While wearables are becoming a bigger market apart from watches, there is a huge hill to climb for companies to market these devices. The field of smart glasses is known for its many failures like Google Glass and more recently, the Snap's Spectacles. Augmented reality could be a boon for the smart glasses but getting consumers to buy them is a different story.
Additions like Alexa may make the smart glasses a more attractive product, however. Interfacing with devices that don't have a need for touch can actually be difficult.
At the moment, the dominating technology is the smartphone. Why would someone need to wear a pair of glasses all the time when they could get the information directly from their phone?
Also, one of the problems for Vuzix could be the price point. Snap's Spectacles sold for $129 and even with the low price, consumers were driven away by its limitations. Though the Vuzix smart glasses will come with more features than just sharing to Snapchat, people are still not used to wearing another device all the time.
Financial analyst Gene Munster, who recently predicted that Amazon may try to buy Target this year, says that smartphones will make way for smart glasses within the next decade.
