Glasses Category Research Note

Glasses Category Research Note

Editorial conclusion

Classify glasses through sensing, visual output, spatial registration, input, and intended duration. Do not use "smart" or "AI" as a substitute for a functional category.

Camera glasses can include cameras, microphones, speakers, motion sensors, voice input, and an AI service without being AR glasses. Display glasses add private visual output. Spatial AR glasses represent the environment and keep digital content aligned to places or objects.

Registration test

Head-relative output follows the wearer's view like a dashboard. World-locked output stays at a physical location. Object-relative output follows a recognized object.

Spatial mapping supports placement, occlusion, physics, and navigation by representing real-world surfaces. Microsoft spatial-mapping documentation

Product examples

Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 and Oakley Meta Vanguard are camera-and-audio glasses. They do not provide visual output to the wearer.

Meta Ray-Ban Display provides a monocular visual overlay designed for short interactions. Meta says the display is off to the side and absent when not needed. Meta Ray-Ban Display announcement

Meta described Orion as its first true AR-glasses prototype, with a wider see-through display and spatial input. Orion is a prototype, not a shipping substitute for Meta Ray-Ban Display. Meta Orion announcement

Boundary

A display product may gain more spatial features over time. The public taxonomy should be revised when a product materially crosses the registration boundary, not whenever marketing language changes.