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Ask HN: Why did previous AR-glasses companies fail?

• hindsightbias 5y ago
  Probably all sorts of reasons. Market/problem domain choice, strategy, IP, price, weight are all hard problems and then you get to extremely hard optics issues that require all sorts of tradeoffs. Solve all that, and then you need to invent a whole new UX paradigm and integrate it with whatever solution it is supposed to solve. Take everything that needed to happen for the iphone and multiply it a few times.
• ohiovr 5y ago
  Probably the same reason 3D tv comes and goes every decade or so. Lots of excitement but people end up hating the glasses and it all fades away. It will be back.
  • pkrotich 5y ago
    I've always thought such TVs should have dual mode - let me turn on 3D when I want to e.g special occasions.
    • toast0 5y ago
      Most (all?) 3d tvs work fine as 2d tvs as well, but why pay for extra hardware that never gets used. Doesn't help that 3d broadcasts stopped and streaming video services no longer offer 3d streams (AFAIK, but let me know if I missed something). You can still use 3d blu-rays though.
  • cyanydeez 5y ago
    i believe it reauires a type of seamlessness that requires very specific technologies that d9nt exist.
• aurizon 5y ago
  Unmatched cost-application(utility)-need = tiny pool of buyers. Some needed it, some could afford it, some had a use for it. Cost was the major hill, lower that hill and more would buy, get it really low and the people that play with things, games etc would buy in. The solution is to make tiers based on computational and software capability, so you would have a broad pyramid of users that could buy a higher view if they had the $$ or needed it?
• cyanydeez 5y ago
  probably batteru vs tether. google glass is the correct way to expect AR to "win" but we are nowhere near the power density. this time around is no different.
  • newark 5y ago
    We have more efficient processors today that may be able extend battery life. AR glasses definitely have to be untethered.
  • toast0 5y ago
    Google glass is a google watch that you look up and to the right for. Not very ergo, not very cool, and the APIs were crap too[1]. AR that we want is like labels over/under physical objects, in the field of view, or pokemons or whatever in the field of view. Personally, I'd rather have a thin tether wire to a battery in my pants pocket or belt mounted, etc than to have the weight of a battery on my face; but nobody asks me. [1] At least when I had access to a pre-release one, notifications had to go through the cloud and there was no expectation of timelyness. No direct phone to glass communication (unless you were Google's SMS app)
• mmmBacon 5y ago
  They fail because the user experience is not great and there is no compelling use case that has broad market appeal.
  • gs17 5y ago
    Not all of them aimed for a broad market. Daqri originally was aiming at industrial/construction use instead. Their headset was built into a hardhat and it seemed like a decent niche if the capabilities were there. The real issue seemed to be a combination of cost and overpromising the tech. I remember videos where they were acting like it would have an "x-ray" view of things for maintenance, linked to IoT sensors for data, but I'm not sure if any of that ever existed.
    • SahAssar 5y ago
      That sounds a lot like some of the promises of hololens. Maybe this segment requires the deep pockets, partners and platform integration that only a giant like microsoft can bring.
  • newark 5y ago
    Would you expand on what part of the user experience is not great please? Is it the UI, UX, wear / form factor of the devices? How might the experience be improved?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• aaron695 5y ago
  There is no use case, never has been. To do any interesting experience requires 100 of millions of dollars to create, you might as well create a computer game or blockbuster movie instead. Same for work purposes, the money spent could be used in an app to solve the problem. Hardware is not the problem. The recent cycling glasses on HN kinda show this. They are single use and ok, but a lot of money has been invested for a very simple product
• no_butterscotch 5y ago
  They weren't any good, and were a solution in search of a problem? I'm awaiting Apple, they can do it potentially and are working on Apple Glasses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29451731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29451731.
• mgamache 5y ago
  I worked at a Glass startup for a while. Explorer Glass was really underpowered. Then Enterprise 1.0 was released, but still ran an old Glass OS (Android 4.4) and overheated (among other issues). The latest Enterprise 2.0 is really pretty good. But, there is/was no killer app. We tried remote support or medical applications, but few were really interested despite the seeming need for these types of products. (note: I also worked with ODG, Vuzix and RealWear and demoed the Toshiba product)
  • newark 5y ago
    Would you shed more light on why there little interest in remote support / med applications? If there was a need for it, what held it back? What do you see as a common weakness / deficiency in products from ODG, Vuzix, and RealWear that could sink them by competitors such as HoloLens and Magic Leap? On the other hand, what do they need to beat HoloLens and Magic Leap?
    • mgamache 5y ago
      There are many medical applications. One is remote care and surgical follow-up. In many places getting access to a specialist is difficult (esp for Pediatric and Derm). A nurse would wear Glass and act as a proxy for the remote specialist doc or allow for follow up post-surgery. This is a big deal for remote communities that have poor health outcomes because of lack of access. In the US there's no incentive to reduce cost or provide better care (really) so it's a hard sell. Remote support is really targeted at operations that have a high cost when it's not working (like manufacturing) and have a high degree of sophistication. A lot of times someone might need to drives hours or get on a plane from some other location to address the issue. There were issues with all the products, but for my money Glass or Realwear was the best solution. Glass if it needs to be easy and Realwear if it needs to be robust. I can be more specific if you like.
      • newark 5y ago
        Those are interesting use cases for sure. It seems like they would have more than paid for themselves. So, what critical issues (technical, usability, etc) did those AR glasses have that would explain the lack of interests in them? Yes, please share specifics. I hope similar mistakes would be avoided time around and not delay AR adoption for another decade.
• readonthegoapp 5y ago
  The one I know most about seemed to be corrupt af from top to bottom, including all thru HR, incompetent af at many key upper-level positions, and had the worst culture of any company i've ever been at. It's actually the experience that, 20+ years into IT, I finally started to believe that 'company culture' could potentially matter at least a little bit -- i.e. maybe it wouldn't make you win, but it could def help you lose. The product management function, to the extent it existed, was ass. I suspect that was because it wasn't allowed to be run by people who either knew what they were doing, or were actually hired to do it -- not sure tho. There were other factors too, that almost certainly played an important, potentially deciding, role in the company's fate -- but naming it/them would give it away. So, any number of factors could have killed the company. imo. I do remember being on one call where prospects were trying to invest in the company -- it just seemed like the tech, once experienced, could have that effect on some people.
  • newark 5y ago
    I can guess which company that was. Management and company culture were specific issues for that company, and they were serious issues that caused their demise. But for AR companies, more generally, what critical challenges (technical, usability, etc) were they facing, and if only they had surmounted those, they would have brought about AR adoption sooner?
    • readonthegoapp 5y ago
      i suspect the tech for AR (as opposed to VR) was just not there yet. and prob is still not. looks cool? check. works well/reliably? uhhhhhh. some of the problems that Tesla is having with self-driving seem reminiscent of what the AR tech needs to deal with -- just in terms of, the problem space is stubborn -- how to get much more compute power into a much smaller footprint? maybe you can piggyback on a nearby computer/phone, but then you're strapped in -- you need near-real-time communication, so no networking tech except a cable is going to work, so now you're physically bound to a workstation as you try to move around your lab, the worksite, etc. and Apple/Cook came out and said, basically, VR is nothing, AR is everything. that was good for AR. but did it cause any movement? Snap seemed to get maybe a small lift. but is anyone actually using AR for anything in production? Maybe the 'advanced forward-looking tech division' of comglomerate 'x' gets a $100M slush fund to go out and buy and play with cool tech each year -- but it never has to use the tech in any meaningful way -- it's already an R&D write-off. prob some medical training folks are using it a bit -- train your biochem/vaccine lab workers -- that's not nothing, but... the VR space just seems much more mature, and maybe that's because it's just a much easier problem to solve. not sure - not my tech area of expertise.
• bradknowles 5y ago
  Every VR/AR solution I’ve ever seen has multiple problems. 1. It’s too expensive, even for the cheap ones. 2. It’s slow and performs badly, even for the expensive ones. 3. The display still looks pixelated and not fully immersive. Not even the most expensive ones I’ve ever heard of have solved this problem yet. 4. The ones that tend to do better in regard to multiple factors also tend to be tied to external computer hardware that is connected by a cable, because you still can’t cram all that horsepower into a device small enough to fit on your head. 5. Even if you solve all the above problems, there’s still the human problems. One of the key human problems is the distance between your pupils. Each human on the planet has a slightly different measure in this regard than every other human, and all software I know of is only capable of handling a certain range of these distances. And there’s a really long tail of people who can’t be properly served by a given program, and even if they can be served by program A, there’s hundreds of other programs they might need/want to run on the system that they may not be well served by. The other key human problem is the difference between your focal distance versus the angle of convergence for your eyes to meet that focal point. In the real world, near objects are near, and you have to focus near on them plus you have to converge your eyes more to properly aim them at the focal point for that object. In the real world, far objects are far, and your focal convergence and focal distance likewise work hand-in-hand to be able to see that object clearly. However, in the fake VR/AR world, your focal distance is always close to your face. Your glasses, or whatever they are, sit right in front of your eyeballs. But those systems still make you change the angle of your focal convergence for near objects versus far objects. Humans just weren’t designed to have those two systems work independently of each other. It hurts the eyes. It hurts the brain. We have evolved over millions and billions of years to be where we are today, and throughout virtually all of the history of humanity, focal convergence and focal distance have always worked at the same time and in harmony with each other — at least for most of the people who can actually see properly. Outside of VR/AR, if these two systems don’t work together for you, then you are most likely functionally blind — you can’t properly focus on objects that are near or far, or you can’t properly converge your eyes on objects that are near or far. Or maybe both. IMO, the disconnect between focal convergence and focal distance is the killer. This is what killed 3D movies, it is what killed 3D TV displays, and it will also kill VR. However, it might not kill AR, depending on certain implementation details of how the additional objects are overlaid on top of the real world that you can still see through the AR system. I’d keep my eyes open on the AR space, to see if someone can work some real magic.