The Road Ahead

The hurdle for mass AR adoption is building glasses that are light, affordable, and stylish while still lasting all day. Three shifts will decide how AR and VR enter daily life:

• Lighter hardware — Meta's Orion prototype glasses weigh under 100 grams and look almost normal. Apple Vision Pro proved the tech works, but at $3,499 and about 600 grams it is not ready for all-day wear
• Spatial computing — instead of flat screens, you work with content floating in the space around you. Surgeons already use this to see CT scans hovering over a patient
• Remote presence — companies like Spatial and Immersed offer shared VR workspaces for teams far apart