Arguably, Google didn’t initially do the optical trade much of a service when it released its publicly available SMART glasses back in 2014. While a brave and necessary step in the march towards facially adorned tech, it separated the world into the geeks and the rest, exacerbated by the futuristic styling.
While smart glasses continue to be developed in less obtrusive styles, those offering more exotic functions such as AR require cameras, electronics, and enough space on at least one lens to project images. The result is that they remain aesthetically clunky and still at the thin end of the market wedge that they will no doubt expand along in the future.
Further up that wedge are audio glasses. Although still more novelty than mainstream, the amount of real estate required for sensors, speakers, and microphones is substantially less than for full-equipped smart glasses. Consequently, they are starting to squeeze into styles that could be mistaken for...