Augmented-reality glasses with see-through optical displays like the Microsoft HoloLens 2, Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 and Magic Leap 2 are already being used commercially. But low display resolution, small field of view, short battery life, bulky form factors and high costs have restricted them to a limited range of tasks. Apple’s Vision Pro headset and Meta’s Quest 3 also provide AR experiences by streaming a live video feed of the wearer’s surroundings to the device’s display, interleaved with digital content.

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Hardware begins to mature

The first generation of AR glasses reaches maturity, with widespread industrial and commercial use for those working in field operations. Optical breakthroughs improve field of view, but most processing is still done on a companion device and beamed to glasses over 5G. A breakout product from a leading device company could start to make consumer applications attractive to a wider audience.

10-yearhorizon

AR displays can be worn all day

The heat dissipation problem is solved, making it possible to build AR devices indistinguishable from normal glasses. This allows people to wear them all day, replacing the smartphone as the primary digital interface. Improvements in display resolution make the devices useful for knowledge work like information processing and 3D collaboration. Devices become capable of switching seamlessly between AR and VR, opening the gates to the metaverse.

25-yearhorizon

AR and VR begin to feel like reality

Generalised haptic interfaces that can replicate a broad range of tactile sensations are realised, making both AR and VR experiences almost indistinguishable from reality. Advances in brain-machine interfaces start to make it possible to transmit visual and haptic information directly to the brain.

All of these devices are ungainly and power-hungry. For the technology to achieve widespread use, it needs to be indistinguishable from a normal pair of glasses. This will require breakthroughs in optics,¹⁰ energy-efficient computing and wireless communication, but the biggest challenge is safely dissipating heat from on-board electronics.¹¹ Balancing the competing pressures will require careful co-design of hardware and software.¹²

Tricks like “foveated rendering”,¹³ where the eyes are tracked and only the area of focus is rendered in high definition, could help sidestep hardware limitations. A companion device, such as a smartphone that does the bulk of the processing, or sensors with built-in processing capabilities, could also reduce computational loads.¹⁴.

Creating truly immersive augmented reality will also require breakthroughs in generalised haptics that can mimic a wide variety of sensations. Spatial audio could work in concert with visual cues to deepen immersion or guide attention,¹⁵ and physiological monitoring through EEG and skin conductance could help understand the user’s intention to optimise the information displayed. Augmented reality may eventually be mediated by brain-machine interfaces connected directly to the nervous system.

Augmented reality hardware - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.