Apple mulls smart ring, glasses in push to expand wearable category: Report

Apple has been exploring new concepts for smart wearables such as incorporating AirPods with cameras for smart glasses-like functionality, according to a Bloomberg report

Apple is reportedly exploring ideas for developing new wearable devices such as fitness ring, smart glasses, and AirPods with cameras built-in.  According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, engineers at Apple have recently been discussing the possibility of developing smart glasses similar to Meta’s Ray Ban smart glasses. There have also been discussions about developing a health-and-fitness tracking smart ring.

Gurman in his newsletter noted that, for now, the smart ring idea is still in the initial discussion stage, but the smart glass concept has moved to an “exploratory phase”, which the company calls technology investigation phase internally. Apple is also looking into other ideas such as built-in cameras on AirPods.

According to a Bloomberg report, Apple plans to include an audio device and camera to the conceptual smart glass, which would be able to provide audio output, removing the necessity of wearing an AirPod, while the user can leverage the built-in AI features and the Camera to identify things in the real world.

Apple is said to believe that consumers are increasingly comfortable with using smart glasses for taking video, playing music and giving voice commands to chatbots, as indicated by the success of the recent generation of Amazon’s Echo Frames and Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. Additionally, a smart glass would be less expensive than the Apple Vision Pro headset, which could make it much more appealing to mainstream consumers.

Similar to the smart glass concept, Apple is also exploring ways to incorporate cameras onto its AirPods that would give consumers benefits of smart glasses without requiring a frame. The idea is already in its exploratory stage and has been codenamed B798 internally, according to Gurman. The report stated that in the current phase Apple is figuring out how to place a low-resolution camera onto the AirPods for the device to be able to capture data and process it using AI, assisting consumers in their daily life.

As for the Smart Ring concept, Gurman said that Apple could cater to a new set of customers who wish to track their health but do not hold other smart watch features necessary like applications and notifications. There are also people who do not require a smartwatch as they prefer traditional watches. With a smart ring, Apple can build a new customer base with these people. Apple can also tie the ring to its Health and Fitness apps and sell it like an iPhone accessory.