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This morning, upstart smart glasses company even the realities launched even hubAn open app store and developer platform for G2 line of display style smart glasses. This could be the first battle in the war between smart glasses with open- and closed-platform displays.
On one side there is meta. The Goliath of the smart glasses market has so far taken a completely closed approach to its new display glasses: The meta dictates what your smart glasses can do and dictates what apps you can access. David to Meta’s Goliath is Even Realities, a boutique tech company that recently launched a storefront with more than 50 apps created by third-party developers, so users can decide for themselves what to install and what to ignore.
While the market for AR-style smart glasses with displays is currently limited to tech heads and early adopters, if HUD-style glasses take hold (and both companies maintain their current strategies) the winner could determine how much control users will have over their augmented future.
Competitive Strategies for Display-Style Smart Glasses
In terms of total market share, Meta and Even Realities are not in the same universe. Meta has a market capitalization of about $1.47 trillion, and its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses line is worth about $1.47 trillion 82% share of smart glasses market. Even realities are worth a guess $10 million And its annual revenue of $3.3 million is less than one percent of the total smart glasses market. But in the field of display-integrated glasses, the two companies are on par: projections for 2025-2026 show Meta having sold approx. Its 20,000 high-end, meta Ray-Ban display glassesWhile Even Realities’ profits show that the company has shifted its G2 glasses production to between 10,000 and 25,000 pairs.
The two companies are taking very different approaches to selling “glasses with a HUD.” Meta’s display glasses are priced at $799, and are designed to do everything its popular non-display glasses do, with full-color, high-quality video and a distinctive, Ray-Ban look. Even Reality’s $599 G2 Glasses don’t have an onboard camera or audio, and the mono-color display is housed in a very discreet frame that won’t leave anyone suspecting it’s anything other than a “normal” pair of specs. They are designed to be fashionable, functional, everyday glasses that can also project a map before your eyes or help bartenders when needed. For more information, here’s a review of the previous generation of Even Reality glasses.
The most significant division between these companies may prove to be their approach to software. All technology is on a continuum between “open” and “closed” and Meta’s smart glasses are, so far, in the restricted part of the spectrum. You get a highly curated experience, with Meta acting as the arbiter of what’s installed on your Face Computer, whether you’re using Display Glasses or Ray-Ban Metas. You don’t download apps, you turn “experiences” on and off. You can choose to disable or enable Apple Music, but you can’t choose to listen to music on a new platform developed by a third party. You can’t remove core features you don’t want. Even something as basic as changing the wake-up words for the AI ​​is off limits; It’s “Hey, meta” or it’s nothing.
What do you think so far?
Even the reality approach is semi-open like Apple’s App Store. It’s not an “anything goes” approach to Linux, but you can peruse Even Realities’ library of approved apps and choose whether you need an in-glass ePUB reader, a chess game, or a charge indicator for your Tesla. Even Realities also lets you remove key features you don’t use on its Glass.
It is worth noting that Meta does not fundamentally oppose third-party development. The company’s Meta Horizon store for the Quest series of VR headsets is a huge, vibrant marketplace, featuring everything from high-end games to small, janky tools, and the company has shut down most of its stock. first party VR development, pledging to continue supporting indie developers. So it’s possible/likely that Meta is waiting for the hardware to mature before opening a more open store for its Glass, or is just adding a “displays” section to the existing Horizon store.
Open is not necessarily better
Although the quick reaction may be to conclude that the option offered by an open system is more desirable than a closed system, this is not always the case in the technological world. Nintendo dominated video games in the 1980s maintain strict quality control Many games were released on the NES, and some kids wanted a more “open” competitive system. Adobe’s Flash dominated everything the “open web” had to offer in the early 2000s, but that ended when another relatively closed system, Apple’s iPhone, refused to support it. Talking about Apple, its iOS devices are responsible 63% of US smart phone marketWhile the nearest competitor, the more open Android, is always in second place. As they say, only time will tell whether consumers prefer a curated experience, want glasses that are modular, open, or even have a HUD.
