Wearables

This is one of the reasons Spatial Computing is so strategic. By the time this opportunity arrives, vision computing technologies will allow the injection of software into eyeglasses that would solve incremental problems for many users on a continuous basis. We call this jobs-to-be-done and as display, input, and capture/sensing data will flood into the eyewear product, consumers will find new jobs to hire the products to do.

In addition there are many non-consumers. There is non-consumption for people who do not have an eye refractive condition (myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia), i.e. children and there are the underserved who may be unwilling to obtain glasses.

The conversion of 2.2 billion un-served is also worth considering. When Apple watch arrived, many people had stopped wearing watches since timekeeping was always on their phones. The watch became an accessory to the phone and adoption increased. The same might happen with Apple eyewear. “Eyespace” is perhaps the most interesting and important wearable space after all.

Apple is waiting for the timing. It enters when the technology is finally good enough to build something people actually want to use, not a day before.

I was one of the un-served in the watch market. My phone told me the time, so I never wore a watch. Then I bought an Apple Watch — not to check the time, though it does that too, but for the new jobs it unlocked as an accessory to my phone. Health and fitness and notification triage were the two jobs it nailed that won me over.

I don’t need glasses today, so I’m un-served in this market too. But put the right jobs in a pair of eyewear and I’d wear them, same as the watch. I’m curious what those jobs turn out to be.