AI Smart Glasses vs Smart Phones
The interwebs have thrown up quite a few hot takes recently about how smartphones are past their peak, maybe even on there way out; and AI driven smart glasses will emerge as the new dominant “mobile” devices.
There were a number of AI smart glasses products promoted at CES. There was also this:
Mark Zuckerberg did not mince his words during his latest intervention. According to the CEO of Meta, mobile phones, as we know them, would be living their last years. By 2030, they would be replaced by a more discreet and sophisticated technology: smart glasses.
And this via The Neuron:
ByteDance wants to put AI in your face (literally!)… but will anyone trust it?
You know ByteDance, the owner of TikTok? It’s building some new AI-powered smart glasses that record what you see, whisper suggestions in your ear, and turn real life into monetizable content. The glasses will pair with its Doubao chatbot, shoot high-res video, and offer voice-activated AI support on the fly.
Think: first-person livestreams, automated captions, trend alerts, and product links floating in your POV.
ByteDance already has the pieces in place:
CapCut: Auto-editing, voice cloning, and AI video summaries.
Ola Friend earbuds: On-device voice AI, already in market.
Pico: Hardware R&D and AR integration from a 2021 acquisition.
$12B AI spend in 2025: Including a $614M data center in Shanxi.
So this is more than a wearable—it’s a mobile production studio engineered for affiliate revenue, real-time feedback, and shoppable moments.
I’ve seen these and other similar articles and have got to a place where my feelings about them are pretty clear. They’re something like this:
NO, I hate that. Hate all of that
I hate the idea of that becoming the 2030 future for a number of reasons, including:
Smart watches feel intrusive enough to me - giving me notifications on my wrist that I already have on my phone; I don’t need an even more intrusive type of device on my person
Our eyes seem fragile to me, easily strained already via desktop, phone, and tablet devices - that always on firehose of information feels like a brutal assault on them
Interacting with all of that data via our eyes sounds even worse
Not that we are free from this without AI smart glasses, but they also feel like a leveled up privacy infringement device for government agencies
Maybe AI smart glasses will dominate, maybe they’ll be the perfect tool for influencers and vloggers; luckily I’m more than old enough to be neither of those. I much prefer this thinking on the primary device we’ll have with us over the next 5 or so years:
What do you all think? Are you all in on AI smart glasses?
NOPE. Sure Zuckerberg wants to take down the iPhone and the meta glasses have done pretty good but nah.
I think a more likely scenario is we still carry a thing, but the UX and app model is very different. We saw some prototypes of that earlier on, that's gone kinda quiet now but I bet we'll see another batch come the holidays
I'm with you on this one. There have been several iterations of wearables in the past 5-10 years or so. While initially they seem super cool and futuristic, I think the novelty fades quickly once in use. Fidgeting with clothes, e-gloves, scrolling with my eyes etc...I remember the nuisance of Google Glass after about 30 seconds. I'm happy seeking my information as needed not fu*%ing about with a constant, wearable, information feed to my face.