Apple Launches New Internal Research into Smart Glasses

After announcing the Vision Pro last year, Apple is reportedly exploring more ways to deliver augmented and virtual reality content to users — and the idea of smart glasses appears to be growing within the company. A Bloomberg report on Monday revealed that Apple is conducting a new internal study focused on creating smart glasses.

Apple Wants to Know What Its Employees Think About Smart Glasses

According to the report, the initiative is known internally as “Atlas” and was supposed to begin last week with Apple employees providing feedback and thoughts on smart glasses. The group behind the initiative wrote an email to select employees confirming the research into products in the segment.

“Testing and developing products that everyone can love is essential to what we do at Apple. That’s why we’re looking for participants to join us in an upcoming user study using advanced smart glasses,” the email reads.

As Bloomberg has detailed, Apple often assembles secret groups when it plans to launch a new product category. The company prefers to gather feedback from employees rather than customers to keep its plans under wraps. The study suggests that Apple wants to push the idea of making its own smart glasses.

This isn’t the first time Apple has been rumored to be considering making smart glasses. However, the idea seems to be maturing within the company. While the Vision Pro costs $3,499 and hasn’t been a huge hit, Meta is doing well with its smart glasses created in partnership with Ray-Ban.

Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses aren’t as advanced as Apple’s Vision Pro since they don’t even have a display. But users can still listen to songs, answer calls, talk to an AI assistant, and take photos and videos using the glasses. Since the Vision Pros are so expensive and heavy, Apple seems to want to create cheaper, lighter glasses for the masses.

A few months ago, Meta unveiled its latest project called “Orion,” which is a pair of glasses with micro-LED projectors inside the frame to project images in front of your eyes. Meta said it's not close to launching Orion, but journalists who have tried the device said they were impressed by its technology. After all, the smart glasses are much lighter than a full-fledged headset.

Unfortunately, the report says it will be years before Apple unveils its smart glasses. Before that, the company was working on a cheaper version of the Apple Vision Pro, as well as a second generation with a faster chip.