Jetpack Glasses
JetpackGlasses.com
Shall we augment our reality?
Most of the technology industry thinks in terms of technology. It’s so ingrained in the way of being, that it’s hard to step out of it and imagine that technology isn’t always the answer.
Let’s take Augmented Reality Glasses as an example.
The original Google Glasses had a video camera and a single-eye heads up display. People’s reactions were visible anger, which caused physical fights between people. That’s not a great product, especially when you’re clear about your core values. Google’s used to be “don’t be evil”, but about a decade ago, they removed it.
The Meta and Snap glasses are now attempting the same thing. Keep the video camera, but this time add AI. It doesn’t seem like they learned the lesson.
Apple, of course, also has a video camera, but took a more human centric approach. Because of the sheer size and weight of the device, it’s most likely to be used sitting down, at home or in an office setting, rather than moving around in the real world. And their spatial videos and photos are marketed primarily as more immersive memories of you and your family interacting at moments you want to relive. So it’s less intrusive than hidden cameras in public anonymously recording others without their consent.
But in all of these instances, the answer was to add more technology, not less.
We believed there was a different path forward.
The primary question is why do these Glasses exist? From our perspective, it’s to serve the human, not the company or the AI.
One of the biggest problems facing humanity today, at the planetary scale of 8B+ people, is so pervasive that most people don’t recognize it.
It’s stress.
Just by saying the word stress you can almost feel your nervous system tightening. It’s that powerful. Like the virality of a yawn, but with more damaging effects on your health. Stress is a killer. It eats away at you silently, day after day, if you don’t have a release valve. Some people turn to drinking, smoking, vacations, music, exercise, family, talking, therapy. All different band-aids for the same underlying problem.
Will adding more technology help with that?
Put on a health tracking device. It shows your BPM going up, but that doesn’t help solve the root cause. A breathing app or YouTube videos may help but you can’t walk around all day with that going, especially as you work, drive, cook dinner, study, take care of the family, run errands, talk to people, etc.
We need something else that interrupts the issue at its source.
The negative news going on 24x7x365. The social content that makes you feel less than. The nasty messages at work that didn’t need to be so nasty. The unexpected bills that show up on a Saturday. The waking up in the middle of the night because you’re worried. We’ve all had enough, but what are we going to do about it?
There’s an old human behavior hack that’s proven to work at replacing bad habits with better habits:
Same trigger
Different action
Better reward
Perhaps all we need is a filter over reality, and a perspective shift, to rip the issue out at the root.
We’ve done quite a bit of research into this. One area that seemed interesting was red lens glasses. So we tried a pair. Interestingly, the moment we put them on, we felt the stress level click down a notch. Like a subtle wave of calm washing over us.
Now, I’m not certain everyone will experience this effect, we’re all slightly different after all, but it worked for us. So we began building a product around it.
But, we had to get the requirements and specifications right first. We certainly didn’t use AI for this. Rather, this comes from a deep sense of empathy. Of Care. Of warmth and wonder.
To begin, we needed to pay close attention to the frames.
They had to have a wide field of view so we could see more through them. Vision space, unlocked.
We needed to manufacture frames that were incredibly lightweight so they disappeared while wearing them.
We also needed a stylish design, so we’d reach out for them in the first place, and keep them on. Clam, meet cool.
Then, we needed to ensure the lenses protected our eyes, not damaged them, so it benefited us wearing them over the long term.
That required us to work with the right lens manufacturer to design a complex analog technology.
The lens needed a gradient coating so brighter light from the sun above us (i.e., darker at the top) didn’t impact our ability to read things below us (i.e., lighter at the bottom).
The entire lens then needed to change color so we could wear it in the sun (i.e., darker tint) and also indoors in front of a computer (i.e., lighter tint).
The lens and frames couldn’t block the auto iPhone unlock, so it still worked while wearing them.
However, it was critical that the lens block multiple wavelengths of light so it actually protected our eyes and biologic intelligence no matter the time of day or use case.
It had to block UV light from the sun. Pool days, walking the dog, commuting to and from work, going to a concert or game, strolling the city with coffee in hand. It needed to work anywhere outdoors.
It had to block blue and green light from little screens to big screens and all the screens in between. Grabbing your phone in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep shouldn’t make it harder to go back to sleep because of the light reaching your eyes.
Finally, we needed a philosophy that rang strong and true.
It had to, in some way, help people overcome the trouble or trauma, and the stress, they were dealing with.
It had to help them realize they had the power all along to make any change that was needed.
It had to give them confidence they could build better lives for themselves.
They just had to decide, then get to work.
Taken together, it took us a year. We worked in private, without telling another soul what we were up to, to go from idea to product in hand. Good things, sometimes, take time. To dial this in, where we felt like we had a balanced product ready to work for us, not hinder us.
It’s one of the most exciting and fulfilling products we’ve yet created, and personally takes me back to similar feelings of when we released v1 of StoryApp 15 years ago. It took work, time, effort, and care, but we did it.
There are only 11 of these glasses that exist in the entire Universe, with a special 1 of 1 that I can’t talk about right now. Just saying that feels pretty darn cool.
But what you can trust is that there is no AI, no video recording, and no purpose of ours that outweighs your own.
We call them Jetpack Glasses because when you put them on, you take off.
You are the evergence. You always have been.
Adventure on at https://jetpackglasses.com
—Sean
