The Curse of Pygmalion - What Would An Ideal AR/VR Device Look Like?

In the first article of our series, we briefly reviewed the history of VR device development. As a result, we concluded that even modern VR gadgets are already outdated. We even developed a special term - The Curse of Pygmalion. Writer Stanley Weinbaum wrote his fantasy story "Pygmalion's Glasses" in 1935! According to the plot, a professor invents a pair of glasses capable of creating an optical, auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, and olfactory illusion of reality. In other words, Weinbaum managed to describe the modern devices we use today.

Today, almost a hundred years later, the current XR device industry keeps reinventing the same Pygmalion glasses again and again. However, as far as I’m concerned, we need a much more modern approach! Read the first part of this article to better understand what I’m talking about.

So, what kind of device is this that will usher in a new era of gadgets?? I’m Roman Axelrod, the founder of XPANCEO. So, let's try to find the answer to this question together!

AR glasses

In the first part of the article, we cleared up the situation with VR gadgets but we didn’t pay attention to another significant element of the industry - AR glasses.

It seems that it was Google that came into the spotlight more than anyone else with its Google Glass.

In fact, no other company had managed to develop truly comfortable AR glasses before Google did.  Everything that had been done before came across more as VR helmets. For example, this very odd device by Epson.

I guess you can call them glasses but with pain and misery.

So, what did Google actually do? The company came up with a simple, but brilliant idea for a device. They downsized the helmet to glasses, i.e. changed the form factor. The functionality suffered as a result, but at the same time, brand-new opportunities were opened to the users.

Placing a small screen on the glasses' arm was a great idea. How about looking at a map without taking your smartphone out of your pocket? Or will you enjoy the automatic translation of a foreign language, letting you understand every word your counterpart says? And the most surprising thing is the environment that remains in front of you, not hidden behind the cameras.

Big tech companies have realized that the VR market is a niche one. Mainly, due to the impracticality and form factor of VR devices (to understand why this is the case, be sure to read the first part of the article). AR glasses, on the other hand, could become the universal solution thanks to their convenience and numerous potential use cases.

As far as I’m concerned, Google has discovered what AR and similar gadgets, in general, are really for. Not just to show 3D content, but to improve our daily lives!

Although the glasses failed to find their buyers, they became a new milestone in the industry. And a bunch of devices really worthy of users' attention started to appear on the market. Which, give or take, tried to become the new standard.

Among the modern examples of AR glasses, I’d like to highlight XREAL Air 2 Pro.

As a rule, I use them while during flights. However, the problem is that XREAL is not a standalone gadget, requiring a smartphone, PC, or any other device with a content output port. My use case is simple: I pair the glasses with my smartphone and watch movies on a 120-inch screen. Not a bad way to kill some time. Unfortunately, the other use cases did not impress me. They are too underdeveloped.

Being a true gamer, my Steam Deck is always with me to play Cyberpunk for several hours. Yes, I also play it in AR by connecting the Rokid glasses to the console.

In fact, the world of smart glasses is full of absolutely diverse gadgets for DIVERSE tasks. For instance, Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. The device allows you not only to listen to music, make calls, take photos, and record videos, but also interact with the Meta chatbot. Users can chat with it and even learn information about their surroundings.

But you can’t display any graphical content on them. The result is just another half-featured device.

A user will only abandon a familiar product and switch to a new one if the user case is 10 times better. Unfortunately, although AR glasses can be useful, that alone is not enough to build a strong user base. The use cases I mentioned above are cool. But they're cool in only one way which is not enough to create a sustainable following of early adopters around the gadget.

The problems of AR glasses are exactly the same as those of the VR helmets. Let me remind you of them:

• Awkward and unfriendly ergonomics
• Short operating time
• No content
• Too uncomfortable for daily wear because of their weight

For sure, the glasses have progressed to some extent. For example, some glasses come with a companion case that can be used to charge them on the go. The glasses have become lighter, about 100-150 grams, nevertheless they still cannot compete with regular glasses that weigh only 40–60 grams. The chatbot customizes the device a bit. But your regular smartphone is still a much better solution for interacting with it.

In addition, the problem of poor functionality became apparent. One gadget you only use for watching videos. The second can’t do any calculations and requires a partner device. The third can’t even play content, but you can discover the world around you with built-in AI.

Generally, it’s worth noting that engineers are still handcuffed by the same limitations that affect VR gadgets. Modern technologies have a number of constraints that do not allow developers to equip the device with all the solutions they are craving to implement.

1. Increasing the battery capacity means increasing its weight. And the glasses, in turn, become a VR helmet.
2. To play games a high-performance SoC must be placed inside. But it will drain the battery in a second and cost a fortune. Once you try cloud gaming, you’ll become dependent on the connection speed and quality.
3. Overall, all AR glasses are essentially semi-functional devices.  They do one thing perfectly, but other features leave much to be desired or aren’t there at all.
   

So, what do we have on the net? Despite the fact that AR glasses have practically reached what we consider to be the form factor of the future, they were all created based on outdated developments. A huge number of smart glasses appeared on the market after Google Glass, but in fact, all their creators have been doing the same thing - reinventing the Pygmalion's spectacles from the shadowy past...

Vision of the Future

So, what form factor will solve all the problems described above but also bring something radically new to the industry? Our eyes, of course! We already have the best camera imaginable, our eyeball. It's up to us to embellish it with technology and improve it.

Smart contact lenses are a fairly new development. If you google “smart contact lens”, you will find several sources that describe this term in slightly different ways.

There are three main types of such gadgets: smart contact lenses for healthcare, for researching the features of smart contact lenses in the R&D institutions, and, finally, commercial smart contact lenses that haven’t been introduced to the market yet, but everybody is looking forward to it. For sure, the latter is the most interesting for us.

A company called Mojo Vision is considered to be the most well-known in the field of commercial smart contact lenses. Their first patents were developed almost twenty years ago.

MojoVision became nothing short of a pioneer in the field. Their star shone brightly when they demonstrated a working prototype of a smart contact lens right in their CEO's eye! With this, the company proved that a smart lens was not just an empty fantasy.

However, we must acknowledge that Mojo built their gadget based on technologies and principles of the technological reality of the late XX - early XXI century. In other words, the Curse of Pygmalion caught up with the company even in such a device. Later the company pivoted to the development of microdisplays.

Looking ahead: XPANCEO simply decided not to use this generation of technologies. We are focused on the technology of the future.

Another interesting solution has just been presented by BlinkEnenergy. It’s an Israeli startup that has developed not quite a smart contact lens, but a prototype battery for it. The battery is mounted on the user's upper eyelid, and you know, it looks awesome, like a device straight out of Sci-Fi movies. But, if we are talking about the current look, the gadget doesn't seem very comfortable to wear.

A Swiss medical company, Sensimed Triggerfish, has even entered the market with its contact lens for measuring intraocular pressure. In their case, 24-hour continuous monitoring is similar to a Holter test for a heart, allowing for a better diagnosis or preparation for surgery.

So, as you can see for yourself, it requires a huge device to measure that pressure and it is impossible to do that anywhere but the doctor's office. This type of device does not cover the more common and important use case of taking measurements every day several times a day, which would really improve it.

What are we seeing in these types of devices? Companies either develop individual functions, a complete medical device or simply focus on other developments.

And that is where the core nuance is. All other developers are haunted by the Curse of Pygmalion as well. In fact, they are all trying to create the same battery or device grounded on existing technologies! Remember, we've already concluded that such an approach to further development is a dead end?

We need a computer of the future, the next stage in the evolution of wearables, the gadgets that will replace all the previous ones! And that will bring even more opportunities and capabilities to humans.

We, at XPANCEO, are systematically moving towards this goal.

Foremost, we are working carefully and meticulously. Secondly, we're absolutely crushing it in groundbreaking fields: novel materials, nano-optics, and nano-photonics.

This mastery isn't just for show - it's the rocket fuel that simultaneously propels us in multiple game-changing directions. And, of course, the holy grail - our smart contact lens.

But here's the kicker: this unique combo will allow us to create a truly perfect smart contact lens. We're not just talking about a lens that only does one thing - we're envisioning a powerhouse that'll rock AR capabilities, healthcare technologies, super-vision, and yeah, maybe even give you some superpowers.

We are also doing our best to avoid the Curse of Pygmalion. Our research department is developing fundamentally new technologies that will enable us to go without "generally accepted” devices in the future.

So, what have we developed?

1. This is the smart AR-vision contact lens. We have developed the world's first holographic contact lens capable of displaying a monochrome image with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. The device is only 0.2 millimeters thick. Yes, it is monochrome for now, but please keep in mind that before an augmented reality with such resolution was only possible with AR glasses or headsets. The contact lens is placed directly on the eye, which makes the field of view unlimited. But the most stunning thing is that we’ve achieved this in just two years! We didn't try to reduce the dimensions of the existing similar solutions. We did develop our own technology. In terms of the industry standards, it is incredibly fast.

2. A smart contact lens with two-dimensional electronics. This is the most important part of the battle against Pygmalion. As I have said many times before, the attempt to integrate outdated electronics into the device is completely wrong. Our team has developed thin and transparent conductors based on two-dimensional gold that supply power to a single-pixel display! In the future, the 2D materials we’ve developed will be able to power not only displays but also neural interfaces.

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3. A smart contact lens with an intraocular pressure sensor. Do you remember the development of a Swiss startup? So, it appears possible to manufacture such a device, but with much smaller dimensions suitable for daily use. Our sensor registers the changes in the refraction of light to understand whether the pressure in the eye is rising or falling, and the software translates this into a precise value.

4. Smart contact lenses with biosensors. The biosensor developed by XPANCEO can register the eye fluid changes to check the level of glucose, cortisol, and other parameters. Our sensor is very precise and can detect the tiniest molecules. Now we are preparing the right low-dimensional materials to activate the sensor on the molecules we need and to adapt it to the tear fluid composition. Soon we’ll be able to showcase amazing results.

5. Smart contact lenses with nanoparticles for super-vision. Such a development clearly proves why it’s necessary to look for new materials for the gadgets of the future. We've discovered that the nanoparticles added to the material change its optical properties. For example, a contact lens with gold nanoparticles enables you to see colors much brighter, which can be useful for color blindness. Nanoparticles can even be used to create a material that transfers light from the invisible range to a visible one. That's right, my friends, with this material you can see in the dark! And the super-vision lens will also help us see 180 degrees!

Of course, we still face a great number of challenges. Right now, we are focusing on our key developments to present a prototype that unites all the features by the end of 2026. It's a long way to go, but the award will be worth all the effort.

Conclusion

Now, how can I answer my very first question - is the way the current AR|VR|XR devices are being developed, a dead end?

YES, if these devices simply display some content and are based on outdated technologies.