Everyone likes to talk about Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) as cutting-edge technology that is going to ‘disrupt’ or even ‘revolutionize’ the technology landscape. Marketing teams invoke AR/VR in almost mystical ways: “the future,” with lots of hand gestures. And they are almost always linked as AR/VR as if they were one thing. In fact, this has become a fairy tale. If we see a presentation lumping the two together as a future use case, we tend to automatically dismiss the rest of the pitch.

Publisher’s note:
Guest Author Jonathan Goldberg is the founder of D2D Advisory, a cross-functional consulting firm. Jonathan has developed growth strategies and partnerships for companies in the mobile, networking, gaming, and software industries.

Actually, AR and VR are very different. And your future is not tied. This is important because for either to become commercially interesting, they need to answer some important questions. And those questions are similar but the answers will be very different.

Why do we say they are so different? Under the hood, the electronics are very similar. VR is a set of glasses that require very advanced, highly miniaturized, high-density screens. AR will likely be a set of glasses that require highly advanced, highly miniaturized, high-density screens. But that’s engineering-driven thinking. And no offense to the engineers here, something that many believe will disrupt technology needs to be looked at from the perspective of user-driven thinking. And here AR and VR have no relation.

Virtual reality is completely immersive, virtual reality glasses block all external light sources. This means that users cannot move, due to the risk of bumping into walls or coffee tables. Virtual reality is designed to consume content: videos, games, training materials. It is true that users can get omnidirectional treadmills, but they will still be in a room. VR doesn’t need to be portable, which greatly simplifies things like power requirements and network connections. For example, VR doesn’t need 5G, home Wi-Fi, or even wired Ethernet will work much better.

Rather, AR is meant to be portable. The goal is to overlay AR data on top of the real world. This makes electronics much more challenging. Power is going to be a big challenge, imagine carrying a battery pack on your belt, with a wired connection to the AR goggles. And here 5G becomes significant, especially given the requirement for very low data latency (necessary to reduce image blur and nausea-inducing vertigo).

So the electronics are similar at a high level, but even at this level of engineering there are already significant differences.

There are important differences in content. VR data can, and likely will, be provided by a single source: the creator of the video or game. Rather, AR will require the integration of massive data layers. The proverbial example of using AR glasses to find a nearby restaurant requires the integration of local food guides, maps, and the user’s current position. True, this exists online today, but the move to something as personalized as AR will likely force a reorganization of those existing relationships. And that’s not to mention a major new category of privacy concerns: AR will be able to tell data overlords a lot more about what we’re doing and who we’re doing it with.

More importantly, the impact these devices will have on consumer behavior will be completely different. Virtual reality may change the way we consume content and will require new ways to capture that content, but it won’t significantly change the way we interact as people. Rather, AR has the potential to remake human interactions as much as smartphones have, which is to say, to a great extent. Done right, AR means immediate connection to all kinds of data: an unseen friend across the park, a restaurant you didn’t know was so close, some event just a block away. We really can’t predict this, just like no one could have predicted Uber before the iPhone was released.

When it comes to basic notions of user interface and user experience, AR and VR are completely different. To sum this up, we think it’s important to look at all the devices and machines we use on a regular basis and compare them in two ways: how portable the device is, and how personal it is to us.

Trains and taxis are not at all personal, shared by many, but they are mobile. Smartphones are extremely personal, you only share your password with people very close to you. Laptops are somewhere in the middle, somewhat portable and quite personal to the owner, but easier to share. The VR goggles sit on the bottom, somewhat personal, and not as mobile. By contrast, AR glasses will likely be incredibly personal, but not as mobile as our phones.

The balance between mobility and personalization

Think about the diversity of UI models for these devices, and we start to get to the heart of how different AR and VR will have to be.

When it comes down to it, the real question at the heart of VR and AR, the only question that really matters is who will control the software, the operating system (OS) that powers them. From this point of view, the answer for virtual reality is probably simple: they will be tied to the game consoles and PCs that provide the content.

On the other hand, the answer for AR is still up in the air. Apple, Google, and Meta would very much like it to be the OS vendor, but that’s not a foregone conclusion. Solving the many UI and OS issues for AR will be a challenge and areas that are still very open to competition.

Image Credit: Barbara Zandoval