Mark Garman writes in the latest edition of the Power On newsletter that Apple is considering various form factors for future wearable products.
This includes smart glasses similar to Amazon Echo Frames and Meta Ray-Bans that offer some smart audio and AI features (far beyond the goal of a full augmented reality glasses to replace the Vision Pro). (can be shipped quickly). Apple is also looking into adding a camera to its AirPods earbuds, which could eliminate the need for a separate smart glasses product entirely.
Apple has also floated the idea of creating a smart ring, a finger-worn device that can perform integrated health-sensing functions for customers who don’t want to wear the bulky Apple Watch. Glasses and rings are in the tentative “early discussions” stage, but the camera-equipped AirPods project seems to be taking a little more shape.
Garman wrote that the project, codenamed B798, began last year. The idea is to find a way to attach a low-resolution camera sensor to AirPods earbuds.
The idea of both smart glasses and camera-enabled AirPods is to provide AI and health features to users in a low-friction way. Cameras built into glasses and earphones take pictures of the outside world, and a multimodal voice and image AI system seamlessly assists users in their daily lives.
AI can, for example, answer questions about the objects a user is looking at. A rudimentary implementation of this feature was rolled out to meta-his Ray-Ban glasses a few months ago.
The earbuds are small and unobtrusive, and while Apple already has consumers happy with true wireless earbuds as a form factor, the glasses version is more risky, but with a higher quality camera and more Built-in long battery life.
However, don’t expect anything to hit the market anytime soon. While these are all clearly early-stage internal Apple initiatives, they do give us some insight into the possible future roadmap for the wearables division.
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