Apple has been considering the possibility of creating new types of “wearable” devices for some time with the aim of expanding and strengthening its position in this sector. Apple’s wearables category, to date, includes Apple Watch and AirPods and accounts for 10% of revenue, more than double the roughly 5% a decade ago.
Wearables could help Apple potentially reach new customers, spur growth, and keep people even more connected to its Apple ecosystem. According to Mark Gurman, an authoritative Bloomberg journalist, Cupertino engineers have already begun exploring the idea of a smart ring and glasses with advanced features, as well as that of further enhancing the already popular AirPods.
A smart ring, although it remains an idea without active development at the moment, could represent a “lighter” and cheaper approach to health monitoring. Apple could appeal to an audience that prefers to avoid wearing a watch, because they may prefer a classic one, offering a device that focuses mainly on monitoring heart rate, oxygen saturation (perhaps first solving some patent issues), calories burned and steps taken, and other health metrics.
This ring could link to Apple’s Health and Fitness apps, becoming an iPhone accessory, thus attracting a new customer segment. Oura Health and Amazfit have already proven that this idea is feasible.
Smart glasses, by contrast, would still be in an exploratory phase within Apple’s hardware engineering division, but could revolutionize the user experience with audio, artificial intelligence, and camera capabilities. Amazon and Meta, after the flop of the initial versions, have nevertheless resurrected to make second generations of their smart glasses that consumers are starting to appreciate to record videos, play music and give voice commands to chatbots.
The project, codenamed B798, reportedly began last year involving some of the company’s engineers who would initially try to figure out how to fit the low-resolution camera sensors into earbuds the size of today’s AirPods. These cameras could theoretically be used to capture data that would be processed via AI and assist people in their daily routines.
