Apple has explored making several smart wearables over the years, including smart glasses, a health and fitness-based smart ring, and AirPods with built-in cameras and other sensors, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. Gurmans’s comments came in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter.
It has long been rumored that Apple has explored the possibility of releasing advanced AR glasses based on its Vision Pro headset. Gurman said the company has also considered developing a “less ambitious” pair of smart glasses, designed to compete with the likes of Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses and Amazon’s Echo Frames.
More recently, engineers at the company’s labs in Cupertino, California, have discussed the possibility of developing smart glasses — something similar to new products from Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The glasses could provide audio (so users don’t have to wear AirPods) and take advantage of AI and cameras to identify things in the surrounding world. The device also could act as a stepping stone toward Apple’s long-held dream: true augmented reality spectacles that you can wear all day.
Apple has also considered making glasses that would serve as an “AirPods replacement.” The glasses would boast built-in speakers, cameras, health sensors, and AI capabilities, says Gurman. It sounds as if we won’t see glasses like these any time soon, as Gurman says the glasses are in a “technology investigation” stage within Apple’s hardware engineering division.
Gurman reports that a few years back, Apple’s industrial design team presented the idea of a health and fitness-focused “smart ring” to executives on the company’s health team. However, he says the finger-worn device is not being actively developed at this time, so we may never see such a device.
For now, the ring idea is just that — an idea. The company isn’t actively developing such a device, but there are certainly people within the walls of Apple’s campus promoting the concept. The glasses, meanwhile, are in an exploratory phase known as “technology investigation” within Apple’s hardware engineering division. The company also is looking into other ideas, such as equipping AirPods with cameras.
Gurman says the new precious could be a low-cost alternative to the Apple Watch, allowing users to sync health and fitness data with a paired iPhone at a lower cost than the Apple Watch.
Last but not least, Gurman says Apple engineers last year began investigating how to fit low-resolution camera sensors into AirPods. Gurman believes the new AirPods could offer Artificial Intelligence features that could “assist people in their daily routines.”
That investigation, codenamed B798, started last year. It involves company engineers figuring out how to fit low-resolution camera sensors into earbuds about the size of today’s AirPods. Such cameras could theoretically be used to capture data that would be processed via AI and assist people in their daily routines.
While none of these wearable devices may ever hit store shelves, it is evidence that Apple is in search of its next big thing to continue to keep up with its competitors.