Introduction
There are many sources of revenue of businesses in various fields. The watches, fitness products and the smart glasses have become an important field of business for many of the entrepreneurs. Various studies have been conducted as far as the global revenue generated by these sources are concerned. It has been estimated that approximately, £2 billion of global revenue in the year 2014 till date has been generated by smart glasses. It is anticipated that UK would be contributing around 10% of the global market in this regard.
The smart glasses have been categorized as most successful and are priced at about $500 in US markets and it is stated that worldwide approximately 4 million units have been sold and in around 0.4 million of these were sold in UK. As for the attraction of fitness bands is concerned, it may be linked to the ability of the owners to span level of exercise which is worth sharing. Similarly, the smart watches, having being small with screen on wrist is negligible for the most but have the incremental benefit. Therefore, it is expected that the demand for the smart watches may be more than two millions. The wearable computer technology includes smart watches, T-shirts and other forms including smart glasses .
Economic Considerations
In UK, the launch of the smart glasses on mass level is due to the collaboration of delight and skepticism, as is done in the case of launching of any digital product. It is anticipated that the smart glasses’ first model is to be bought by niche market consumers. This purchase in UK is estimated in hundreds of thousands, whereas it is considered in millions worldwide. As in every new product, there are chances of disliking or failing of product in the market so is the case with smart glasses.
The unlike outcomes are mainly due to the fact that the product’s innovation level is not much appealing or the product is slightly eccentric. There may be unlike outcome for smart glasses with few fundamental and significant outcomes; they are not transparent and may not work in direct sunlight, due to its low contrast and are unsuitable for watching films or TV programs. It is suggested that this device may be next stage in rollout of screens that are digitally connected in our social, private and professional lives. It represents steadiness, not new start; for instance, the tablets were new but familiar when were launched in year 2010.
- Pricing
The starting price for the successful sale of smart glasses is estimated to range between $400 and $600 in the year 2015. This amount is considered to be significantly high price for majority of public, especially paying such a huge amount of money for a gadget whose benefits are not proven or known at large scale. Some of the produced units may cost up to many thousand dollars but the market demand for these units is comparatively very low. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that in coming years there will be a huge market for smart glasses and people will willingly pay up to $500 for the first time experience and there will be more than many millions who go beyond and will make a real time purchase.
The market of smart glasses will largely comprise of wealthy and elite class people. It is assumed that even if the first time performance of the smart glasses may not turn up to the mark as speculated and further refinement and advancement may called in, $500 is not much to pay for first experience for the wealthy people. Smart glasses usage if first focused on meeting the requirements of consumers and later on its enterprise usage may take a rise as the specifications in the production enhance. One of the most common uses of smart glass for the consumers would be to set the hands free for other activities while enjoying screen based apps.
The other noticeably large scale use would be to navigate, the business class travelers may get benefit in arriving at a place without facing much of hardships. Tourists can enjoy their trip and can record memorable occasions by making videos and capturing snaps, all just by winking. There will be an option to play video games but the attraction for such video games may be limited by the available small size of screen. Sportsman and fitness conscious people may also get benefits by keeping a track record of their performance and having further analysis in front of their eyes.
- Cost of Manufacturing
The simple calculation for the price of smart glasses includes calculating the bill of materials with the margin of the vendors. It is expected that the initial manufacturing cost of the smart glasses would be around $200 due to the miniature size of the components installed in the smart glasses. If the smart glasses get good response from the consumers then the commercial availability and mass production of the same would enable price reduction to as low as $100. This is expected due to the fall in the prices of tablets and smartphones.
- Effectiveness Against Price
The smart glasses are as good in their effectiveness as the components installed in the manufacturing of these. There is fair chance that the vendors of smart glasses would differ in terms of price as well as quality of the products. The prices may be very high by a vendor for the same or different product features offered in a brand than as compared to some other vendor.
The number of apps introduced by various companies would certainly boost the commercialization of smart glasses. The same thing happened for smartphones which took off great due to the introduction of a large variety of apps. Another main feature of the smart glasses include countering the effects of eye sight weakness.
A recent market research entails forecast chapter of about 27 pages, it contains 12 data tables and charts and further divided by eight important regions. The yardstick estimate on smart glasses is endowed for three chief sectors; Health care, Consumer and Enterprise. The estimate provided in the report is a true depiction of strength and importance of smart glasses division.
Consumers of smart glasses may purchase an interactive forecast excel app that comprises of 25 tables and around 2,000 of data points. It also includes extra forecast sets. The smart glasses would serve as live projector for the consumer. The consumers will be able to directly view the charts in the form of 3D. The 3D imaging technique would bring additional excitement for the users of smart glasses.
- Benefiting Industries
There are several industries that are likely to be benefitted from the smart glasses. In a medium term the industries related to oil, gas, and manufacturing will have great benefit due to the commercialization of smart glasses. It has been estimated by the market experts that smart glasses will enable these industries to save more than one billion dollars in their cost of operation by the start of year 2017. The cost saving includes display of instructions for carrying out specific tasks, relaying of videos and photos on site, having live interaction with remotely residing experts.
Smart glasses would also provide a good support to the marketing experts. Smart glasses would be used for marketing products through directly displaying the required products’ details on the display of the user. These details may include price, quantity, size, quality, and specifications etc.
Consumers would greatly benefit from the use of smart glasses when they would be out there in the market for shopping. Consumers may even get details of the prescription drugs recommended by their physicians through the use of special aps. Wearing of a screen with photos and videos on the nose as talking to own glasses may seem very strange today but it is not far from reality .
Features
There are several techniques that are used in smart glasses. One of these techniques include detecting gestures. In order to detect gestures of the individual, smart glasses manufacturers use various ways. Some of these ways include usage of sensors and other devices that get tied to the body of the person using the smart glasses. In most cases the sensors are tied to the fingers or wrist of the user. There are ways in which the manufacturers install a camera to detect the gestures through the use of image processing techniques .
There are hybrid methods in which both of these ways are used in combination in order to improve accuracy of the results of the detection of the gestures of the user. There are various devices available for image capturing such as 3D and RGB cameras. These cameras are directly embedded into the smart glasses. The HWD technology has enabled the real free forms of realization and interaction through the use of sensors as well as cameras embedded into the same together. This eliminate the need of external equipment to be tied to the user while increasing the overall accuracy of detection the gestures of the user. Such techniques are useful and considered ideal for commercial use in manufacturing smart glasses at low cost with high accuracy. It also ensures good comfort level of the user while freeing the hands of the user to carry out other tasks. Non-free form of technique are used in various researches .
Types of Displays
The smart glasses are the innovation of todays’ era, and are becoming famous in the market. It is termed as the devices for computing and is worn on eyes. It performs duel function, as style and need as well. The displays of any type of the glasses are considered as the head of the users. The lenses used in the smart glasses are considered as devices which can be enhanced or altered the vision of wearer. In this regard, it does not matter that where the wearer is located physically, and it also does not matter that where she/he looks. It is quite astonishing for an observer that how it functions . There are main three models that how visual information is altered perceives of the wearer. These are explained as under: -
- The Virtual Reality
There are some objectives to be achieved for the purpose of visualizing the things. The basic aim is to formulate a complete virtual world for wearer to look, immerse into and to interact. In this situation, the virtual world can be seen by the user only. No other source or light can affect the eye of the user. There is a significant difference between the simple screen and this lens is that virtual world is affected by the user, where as in simple screen it in not so. For example, the virtual contents are affected by the movements of the user and his / her observation or what is seen by the user. For instance, one of the famous examples of virtual world, created by the device is Holodeck from the Star Trek.
- The Augmented Reality
The virtual objects augment or enhance the world. In this case, there are both the options lies with the user. The user not only can look real world but the virtual content formed by computing device can also be perceived by the user. This can be displayed by a light additionally fixed by the perception of real world do not prohibit. Communication with computing devices can be carried out by the help of these virtual objects, which is one of the significant role or these devices.
- The Diminished Reality
The objects in this case are deducted from the scenes after the light is being emitted or reflected towards the eye by help of these objects. This is used commonly in amalgamation with the reality in order to substitute the objects which have been diminished by some of the virtual objects.
There are many kinds of smart glasses with bundle of characteristics. The numbers of displays vary with the variety of smart glasses. The smart glasses with single display are placed on user’s peripheral vision. These displays are used in order to display the information to user. However, these displays cannot be utilized for creating virtual or diminished reality, owing to the reason one eye sight in not at all affected. Similarly, these displays also cannot be utilized to form augmented interactive reality, for the reasons that these objects are visible in the peripheral vision.
Brands
There are several manufacturers of smart glasses that have decided to get into the commercialization phase of their product recently. Some of these manufacturers offer quite distinctive features in their products while others have been involved in production of quite simple versions of smart glasses. There is a large number of manufacturers of smart glasses; however, for the purpose of this study, only few major manufacturers of smart glasses are presented in this paper. Following is the detailed description of such brands along with features of the product: -
- Google Glass
A type of glasses is known as Google Glass. This is one of the examples of the smart glasses with single display. The Google glass runs through operating system known as Android system. The specification of the Google glass is as under: -
- The Weight: the weight of the glass is just 50g
- The Processing: ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, 1.2 GHz Dual-core and PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 682MB RAM and 16GB storage. That is equivalent to hardware of IPhone 4, approximately
- The Camera: 2528x1856 pixels, 5MP still or 720p video. However, no flash is there
- The Display: Color prism with resolution of 640x360 pixels.
- The Sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, and the com- pass.
- The Interaction: A long and a narrow pad are there with touch facility and supports tap gestures and swipe; and camera can also be triggered by button.
- The Audio: A transducer of bone conduction is there for audio purpose. The Sound touches inner ear as vibrations on scull. This is an audible technology by hearing impaired persons as well with hearing of normal range.
- The Communication: No cellular modem is there meaning no phone calls on own can be made. However, WLAN 802.11b/g and Blue- tooth are there.
There may be other functions of wearing a Google glass. Mainly, it is used in amalgamation with smartphone. One of the main uses of Google glass is that the notifications may be displayed in a quick and convenient way. The price rate of the Google glass is not yet finalized. Similarly, the release date is also not known. However, it is anticipated that the price would be the more or less same as the high end smartphone.
- Bru¨ckner TRAVIS
As far as the design of Google Glass is concerned, it has been noticed that Travis has not a sturdy design and it is for consumers. The design made for this glass is not for the hardy environment like, in the factories etc. The example of industrial glasses is Bru¨ckner TRAVIS. As this is run through a processing unit, therefore, is not lighter, rather is lot heavier than the Google glass. In this case the processing is completed in a PC (embedded one) which is worn in vest. Six hardware buttons are used to control it. The chief functions of this device to stream the video and display manuals to the employees.
- Reckon MOD
Lots of devices have been designed for the use of people during sports time. As sports are always being carried out in a rough environment, therefore, it is desired that it should be designed in a way so that it would be flexible and not heavy. In this context, Reckon MOD sports smart glasses have been designed. These are termed as snow sports smart glasses, as they can be operated in a temperature ranges from -20 degrees to 30 degrees. The major functions of Reckon MOD are to display performance statistics and maps.
- Vuzix M100
As reflected by the name, the experience of wearing smart glasses is not limited to wearable TV. The first ever communication system and personal hand free display aimed at connecting customers to cloud and Smartphone data is given by Vuzix’M100 . All the top rated services like email, text, audio messages, mapping, video and other uncountable apps that customers expect from today’s Smartphone are made available via this personal wireless information display system. Smart glasses present a wearable visual association to cloud; it is available through Smartphone or other such device at any part of the world.
Worldwide attention has been made by these newly arising wearable devices. The smart glasses; for example the Vuzix smart glasses and the Google glass are the eye glasses which are computerized. These glasses have number of advantages; they not only increase the processing of the data functions but also made the video monitors minor/tiny. Additionally, the latest smart glasses are also equipped with many sensors; like accelerometer, gyroscope and GPS to enhance the capabilities. In order to improve the interfaces of human on usage of the smart glasses, numbers of energies have been spent. For instance, control or command on smart glasses by voice, gesture or just be tilting of head, video capture or photo. Some of the smart glasses are equipped with the features such as augmented reality intersections .
Conclusion
Smart glasses have the similar scope of success like smartphones. The cost of manufacturing of these glasses depend on the scale of production which depends on the demand by the consumers. The cost also depends on the quality of components used in the manufacturing of these glasses. The estimated price of smart glasses ranges between 200 USD and 400 USD; however, mass scale production may bring the same down to around 100 USD. There are several industries that would benefit from the commercialization of smart glasses. These include manufacturing as well as forecasting fields. There are a large number of features associated with smart glasses depending on the components used in manufacturing the same. Each manufacturer offers different set of features from the rest. The major brands of smart glasses include Google Glass, Bru¨ckner TRAVIS, Reckon MOD, and Vuzix M100.
References
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