Don't buy AR glasses: they'll put real-world popups on your face
A rant against AR glasses argues that the same companies and people who turned the web into a gamified mess of banners, popups, and dark patterns will do the same to AR once it goes mainstream. Glasses are worn all day, so the attention economy will follow you everywhere. Apple, Google, and Meta will build frameworks for ads in arbitrary places, and popups will finally escape the browser window into the real world.
Do you really want the hellscape end-state of the modern attention economy grafted onto your fucking face?
- Schlagbohrer
Counterpoint: I am looking forward to the opportunity to get fully open source, open hardware AR glasses. I anticipate that it will happen as first Meta and Google and big Chinese firms spend the R&D to create the hardware to make it possible, then Chinese knock-offs and discount brands appear, and then someone will start selling a pair through CrowdSupply which are truly open source.
At that point I will be able to have the fun of AR (gaming with paper toys or other papercrafts, displaying characters on a table for my tabletop RPG group, getting directions in a foreign city, identifying plants and insects just by looking at them, seeing where my cats are located through walls via their airtag collars) without any ads, without any data harvesting nor privacy concerns, and even being able to write my own custom apps or firmware mods. It will still be a toy rather than a necessary part of life like a smartphone has become but a fun toy nonetheless.
- tylervigen
My favorite purchase of 2026 was my pair of Xreal One Pro glasses, which I use as an external display while traveling or on the couch at home. These are not AR glasses; the category doesn’t yet have a well known, accurate, catchy name (Screen-in glasses? Facially mounted display? Spatial glasses?)
I agree with the article that AR glasses are not a great future, but I think [ e-display eyewear / screen spectacles / whatever we call them ] that are dumb and just display what you feed them, are great!
- neonnoodle
I wouldn't buy AR glasses, but also feel powerless to prevent myself from being in the reticule of those who do. When you think about what LLMs and facial recognition allow, we're entering a new conception of the public sphere and personal space/human dignity. I think it goes beyond the traditional notion of "privacy" or "public spaces" and closer to questions about moral rights over your likeness and aggregated personal information.
For instance, what if they invented "X-Ray Spex" like there used to be advertised in the back of comic books, that let you see through people's clothes. Do you have an "expectation of privacy" on a subway train against someone seeing you nude, if the technology exists to do it? I feel like similar cultural standards should apply when it comes to triangulating details about your identity from surreptitious recording devices.
- Taek
I feel like you could retroactively apply this line of argumentation to smartphones: "don't buy a smartphone"
But the truth is, there's too much utility in technology. If AR can do useful things that smartphones cannot, we're going to end up with mass proliferation of AR, regardless of what parasitic technologies accompany it.
- ayaros
This is a silly rant I typed out on a whim so don't take it too seriously. And to clarify, the (inevitable) invasive, abusive implementation of AR glasses is what bothers me, not the tech itself, which is pretty cool.
- iugtmkbdfil834
Am I really the only one who opened the website saw the video first before reading anything and ended up wanting that those glasses exist as shown in that video?
- hoytech
I did recently find a great use-case for AR (of a sort). I got these swim goggles and love them:
Being able to see your heart rate, length/set counts, head pitch, and a whole bunch of other metrics in real-time is really helping me improve my swimming. Not affiliated, just a happy customer.
- rglover
Personally, mass adoption of AR is where I squirrel away deep into the mountains and start my Ted years (in spirit, not practice). There's something about having a 'layer' over reality that's just unappealing and spooky. To each their own though.