Bose Corp., the Massachusetts-based designer and developer of audio equipment, demonstrated its new augmented reality glasses that augment sound instead of vision Friday at the 2018 South by Southwest conference.

Much of the news and technology that follows AR development attends to augmenting vision: projecting virtual objects onto walls, floors, park benches or into living rooms and onto roads. However, not much attention has been spent addressing the nature of augmented audio.

The Bose AR smart glasses look pretty much like an ordinary pair of sunglasses but possess interesting audio capabilities. They use an extremely lightweight camera system combined with processors and very small speakers, described as a “wafer-thin acoustics package” to layer audio over what the user can already hear.

Wearing these spectacles, a user can look at an object and receive audio cues related to that object. Examples include turning on an audio-enabled tour of a city, looking at a particular historic building would trigger a narrated description of its history, looking at a historical statue with a plaque could read the plaque’s information.

The device will also pair with a smartphone or another mobile device via Bluetooth and act as a peripheral, funneling audio and apps through the glasses similar to any other wireless headset. As a result, the Bose AR headset could become a conduit for information services such as Siri, Cortana or Google Assistant.

“It places audio in your surroundings, not digital images, so you can focus on the amazing world around you rather than a tiny display,” John Gordon, Bose vice president of consumer electronics, said at the product unveiling.

Wearers would also be able to use gestures to control the glasses, which can detect and process simple head movements. Also, the glasses can recognize audio cues themselves and process speech-activated commands.

“It knows which way you’re facing and can instantly connect that place and time with endless possibilities for travel, learning, music and more,” Gordon said. “And it can be added to products and apps we already use and love, removing some of the big obstacles that have kept AR on the sidelines.”

An example from Bose of this includes an app that includes an “audio selector” for choosing a playlist or genre of music. Although the selections would not be visible to the wearer, the “sound” played — a snippet of a song or some other audio cue — would trigger based on a particular facing. As a result, the user could select among classical, rock, country or pop music by looking from left to right and finally nod or tap the side of the device to select.

Although the Bose AR smart glasses will provide Bose’s own apps like those, the company is seeking out partners to add to its app ecosystem. According to the audio developer, Bose is reaching out into the industry with a $50 million venture fund that will invest in businesses to help build out the Bose AR platform and its market. Businesses that have already signed up to become part of Bose’s app ecosystem include the restaurant and travel website TripAdvisor Inc., shopping and food recommendation website Yelp, automotive parts technology company Aptiv Plc, audio streaming service TuneIn Inc. and athletic and exercise tracker service Strava.

Bose has not released any details on the final price of the Bose AR glasses, which appear to have a release date for sometime this summer.

The company has also launched a developer portal that contains documentation on the Bose AR platform’s software development kit and application programming interface.

Although the product being demoed at SXSW is a pair of smart glasses, Bose intends to expand its universe of products such that it can be installed in a number of wearables including headphones, other types of glasses and helmets.

Image: Bose