As product design consultants we're watching another tech hype cycle unfold—this time around AI-powered wearables. Google Glass failed. Apple Vision Pro is being discontinued. Yet companies keep pouring billions into smart glasses that users don't want.
This isn't just another product failure story. It's a masterclass in what happens when technology chases trends instead of solving real user problems—and why strategic UX design agencies need to be involved from day one, not after $3,500 goggles sit unsold on shelves.
Remember the Google Glass demo video? It showed compelling use cases:
The demo was brilliant. The product was vaporware.
What Google showed was aspirational futures, not functional reality. As UX design consultants, we see this pattern constantly: sales and marketing teams create videos showing what the product might do someday, not what it actually can do today.
The result? Google Glass launched to developers with bright orange frames that made users look like they were cosplaying Star Trek characters who couldn't commit to the full costume. The interface was clunky. The features didn't work as promised. The $1,500 price tag bought you social stigma and technical frustration.
More critically: Google never validated that people actually wanted computers strapped to their faces in the first place.
Fast forward to 2024, and Apple—the company that supposedly "gets" user experience—launched the Vision Pro with the same fundamental flaws.
Immediate barriers to adoption:
As a UX design agency working with hardware and software companies, we know the first rule of product strategy: validate assumptions before spending billions on manufacturing.
Did anyone at Apple conduct ethnographic research to see if people would actually wear these in public? Did they test whether the $3,500 price point had product-market fit? Did they validate that eye-tracking and hand gestures were better than simply using your phone?
The market answered: No. Apple is now discontinuing the Vision Pro line.
Meta partnered with Ray-Ban to create smart glasses that look normal—a massive improvement. They've added a "neural band" wristband that reads muscle movements, allowing you to "write" messages by tracing letters on your knee with your finger.
The innovation is impressive. The technology works. But as UX consultants working across industries, we have to ask: Who is this for?
Think about the use case:
Compare this to: pulling out your phone and typing. Or using voice-to-text. Or literally any other communication method we've developed over the past 15 years.
This is technology for technology's sake—not technology solving real user problems.
Beyond usability issues, there's a more fundamental problem: users don't trust the companies making these devices.
Meta's Ray-Ban glasses come with a camera. You're essentially wearing Facebook's surveillance apparatus on your face, recording everything you see, everywhere you go.
Why this matters:
As fractional design officers consulting with tech companies, we emphasize that trust is the foundation of adoption. When users don't trust a company with their data, they won't adopt technology that puts that company's sensors on their bodies.
Real-world rejection: Strip clubs and bars are turning people away who wear smart glasses. The social contract is clear: we don't trust you not to record us without consent.
Here's where it gets worse. Both Claude (Anthropic) and LinkedIn recently changed their terms of service to train AI models on user data. Apple has been more protective, but the pattern is clear: these companies will use whatever you feed their devices to improve their AI.
What this means for smart glasses:
UX consulting firms working in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, legal) understand: privacy isn't a nice-to-have feature. It's a legal requirement and a user expectation.
Would you wear glasses that record everything and send it to a company that's already violated your trust? Neither would we.
Let's talk about why these interfaces fundamentally don't work from a UX perspective.
Movies show us characters making cool hand gestures in the air, manipulating holograms and interfaces that look visually stunning on screen. This is designed for cinema, not reality.
As a UX design agency in Nashville working with actual human beings in actual contexts, we know:
Problems with gesture interfaces:
One of our team members tried a Nissan VR demo at an innovation summit. The experience? Clunky interface, taking up unnecessary space with wild gestures, looking narcissistic while others watched you flail at nothing.
The promised use case: Customize a car's interior and see thread detail in seats.
The reality: An awkward, uncomfortable experience that could have been accomplished better with a tablet, a website, or literally just visiting a showroom.
Apple Vision Pro uses eye tracking for navigation. You look at interface elements to select them, then pinch your fingers to activate.
Why this increases cognitive load instead of reducing it:
Product design consultants know that good interfaces become invisible. You don't think about how to use them—you just use them. Eye tracking requires constant conscious attention.
Beyond usability issues, there's a more fundamental problem: users don't trust the companies making these devices.
Meta's Ray-Ban glasses come with a camera. You're essentially wearing Facebook's surveillance apparatus on your face, recording everything you see, everywhere you go.
Why this matters:
As fractional design officers consulting with tech companies, we emphasize that trust is the foundation of adoption. When users don't trust a company with their data, they won't adopt technology that puts that company's sensors on their bodies.
Real-world rejection: Strip clubs and bars are turning people away who wear smart glasses. The social contract is clear: we don't trust you not to record us without consent.
Here's where it gets worse. Both Claude (Anthropic) and LinkedIn recently changed their terms of service to train AI models on user data. Apple has been more protective, but the pattern is clear: these companies will use whatever you feed their devices to improve their AI.
What this means for smart glasses:
UX consulting firms working in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, legal) understand: privacy isn't a nice-to-have feature. It's a legal requirement and a user expectation.
Would you wear glasses that record everything and send it to a company that's already violated your trust? Neither would we.
Let's talk about why these interfaces fundamentally don't work from a UX perspective.
Movies show us characters making cool hand gestures in the air, manipulating holograms and interfaces that look visually stunning on screen. This is designed for cinema, not reality.
As a UX design agency in Nashville working with actual human beings in actual contexts, we know:
Problems with gesture interfaces:
One of our team members tried a Nissan VR demo at an innovation summit. The experience? Clunky interface, taking up unnecessary space with wild gestures, looking narcissistic while others watched you flail at nothing.
The promised use case: Customize a car's interior and see thread detail in seats.
The reality: An awkward, uncomfortable experience that could have been accomplished better with a tablet, a website, or literally just visiting a showroom.
Apple Vision Pro uses eye tracking for navigation. You look at interface elements to select them, then pinch your fingers to activate.
Why this increases cognitive load instead of reducing it:
Product design consultants know that good interfaces become invisible. You don't think about how to use them—you just use them. Eye tracking requires constant conscious attention.
Here's the fundamental issue that UX consultants see across all these products: they're solutions looking for problems, not solutions to identified problems.
Let's be honest about actual use cases:
Turn-by-turn directions:
Hands-free photography:
Information lookup:
Translation:
Augmented reality overlays:
The one area where AR/VR shows promise is specialized professional applications:
Engineering and design:
Medical training:
Industrial maintenance:
Architecture and construction:
Notice what these have in common? Professional settings with specific, high-value problems that justify the cost and awkwardness.
As fractional UX experts working with B2B companies, we'd tell clients: focus there. Build for professionals who will tolerate interface quirks because the value justifies it. Don't try to make mass consumer products until the technology actually solves mass consumer problems.
Let's talk about what UX design agencies should be asking during product strategy sessions:
Costs:
Benefits:
Product design consultants would immediately flag: the cost-benefit doesn't close. You're paying $3,500 for marginally better movie watching. That's not a viable product.
Costs:
Benefits:
Again: the math doesn't work. UX consulting firms exist to help companies see this before they invest millions in manufacturing.
Every failure we've discussed comes back to the same root cause: nobody validated that users wanted these products before building them.
As UX consultants in Nashville working across industries, here's the research that should have happened:
What they should have done:
What they actually did:
Questions they should have asked:
What they assumed:
What they should have compared:
The verdict: In almost every use case, existing tools work better, cost less, and don't make you look like an asshole.
Luke Wroblewski (Luke W) outlined the evolution of AI products in an insightful 60-page article. Understanding these stages helps explain why wearables are failing.
What it looked like:
Why it worked: Users didn't need to understand the technology. It quietly improved experiences without requiring behavioral changes.
What it looked like:
Why it worked: Leveraged existing behavior (typing, conversations) with familiar interface patterns (text boxes, chat windows).
What it looked like:
Why it works: Adds transparency and trust to AI outputs. Users can verify claims and understand where information comes from.
What it's becoming:
Why it's challenging: Users need to understand what the AI is doing and maintain appropriate oversight.
What it could become:
Why it's not here yet: Requires solved problems we haven't solved (trust, interoperability, privacy, safety).
The problem: Companies are trying to jump straight to Stage 5—ambient computing with glasses and wearables—without successfully implementing Stages 3 and 4.
As fractional design officers consulting on AI strategy, we tell clients: walk before you run. Master text-based AI interfaces before you try to revolutionize how humans interact with computers.
Here's the fundamental issue that UX consultants see across all these products: they're solutions looking for problems, not solutions to identified problems.
Let's be honest about actual use cases:
Turn-by-turn directions:
Hands-free photography:
Information lookup:
Translation:
Augmented reality overlays:
The one area where AR/VR shows promise is specialized professional applications:
Engineering and design:
Medical training:
Industrial maintenance:
Architecture and construction:
Notice what these have in common? Professional settings with specific, high-value problems that justify the cost and awkwardness.
As fractional UX experts working with B2B companies, we'd tell clients: focus there. Build for professionals who will tolerate interface quirks because the value justifies it. Don't try to make mass consumer products until the technology actually solves mass consumer problems.
Let's talk about what UX design agencies should be asking during product strategy sessions:
Costs:
Benefits:
Product design consultants would immediately flag: the cost-benefit doesn't close. You're paying $3,500 for marginally better movie watching. That's not a viable product.
Costs:
Benefits:
Again: the math doesn't work. UX consulting firms exist to help companies see this before they invest millions in manufacturing.
Every failure we've discussed comes back to the same root cause: nobody validated that users wanted these products before building them.
As UX consultants in Nashville working across industries, here's the research that should have happened:
What they should have done:
What they actually did:
Questions they should have asked:
What they assumed:
What they should have compared:
The verdict: In almost every use case, existing tools work better, cost less, and don't make you look like an asshole.
Luke Wroblewski (Luke W) outlined the evolution of AI products in an insightful 60-page article. Understanding these stages helps explain why wearables are failing.
What it looked like:
Why it worked: Users didn't need to understand the technology. It quietly improved experiences without requiring behavioral changes.
What it looked like:
Why it worked: Leveraged existing behavior (typing, conversations) with familiar interface patterns (text boxes, chat windows).
What it looked like:
Why it works: Adds transparency and trust to AI outputs. Users can verify claims and understand where information comes from.
What it's becoming:
Why it's challenging: Users need to understand what the AI is doing and maintain appropriate oversight.
What it could become:
Why it's not here yet: Requires solved problems we haven't solved (trust, interoperability, privacy, safety).
The problem: Companies are trying to jump straight to Stage 5—ambient computing with glasses and wearables—without successfully implementing Stages 3 and 4.
As fractional design officers consulting on AI strategy, we tell clients: walk before you run. Master text-based AI interfaces before you try to revolutionize how humans interact with computers.
Since he personally has no time or social media experience to curate an online presence for it, EVE has helped to start the foundation for an online following onInstagram and Facebook to reach customers Faraj would previously have missed out on.
It is important to recognize that social media marketing is becoming the new norm. While the start up of a social media strategy can be overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be.
While you focus on your passion of running your business, EVE is here to focus on our passion of helping you navigate the social media world and digital business.
Since he personally has no time or social media experience to curate an online presence for it, EVE has helped to start the foundation for an online following onInstagram and Facebook to reach customers Faraj would previously have missed out on.
It is important to recognize that social media marketing is becoming the new norm. While the start up of a social media strategy can be overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be.
While you focus on your passion of running your business, EVE is here to focus on our passion of helping you navigate the social media world and digital business.
We have seen this pattern repeatedly across decades:
Failed "Future" Technologies:
What they had in common:
The pattern: When everyone is screaming about "the future," be skeptical. The actual future arrives quietly and solves real problems so effectively that adoption happens organically.
Example: Smartphones weren't hyped as "the future of computing." They just worked so much better than previous phones that everyone switched.
While companies chase AR/VR dreams, the real innovation is happening in boring, incremental improvements:
What it does: Real-time language translation through earbuds you already wear.
Why it works:
This is the kind of innovation product design consultants help companies identify: high-value improvements to existing workflows using accepted form factors.
What it does: Continuous health tracking, fall detection, heart monitoring, sleep analysis.
Why it works:
What it does: AI-enhanced photos, night mode, portrait effects, object detection.
Why it works:
The pattern: The most successful AI integrations improve existing tools and workflows. They don't require users to adopt entirely new behaviors or interface paradigms.
There's a narrative in tech that "interfaces will disappear" and we'll interact naturally through voice and gestures. We're watching this prediction fail in real-time.
Why interfaces aren't disappearing:
Physical and visual interfaces help users:
Voice and gesture interfaces remove this scaffolding, making interactions harder, not easier.
Different contexts require different interfaces:
One interface paradigm can't serve all contexts. UX design agencies know you need adaptive systems that match interface to situation.
Try this experiment: Close your eyes and tell your voice assistant to send an email. Include specific formatting, check for typos, ensure the recipient is correct.
It's nearly impossible. Visual interfaces will always be necessary for precision work.
There's a reason mechanical keyboards are popular despite touchscreens existing. There's a reason people still prefer physical books for deep reading. There's a reason musicians prefer physical instruments.
Tactile feedback and physical interaction aren't bugs—they're features of human cognition.
One critical element absent from every failed wearables launch: comprehensive service design.
Service design focuses on the entire customer experience by aligning processes, people, and infrastructure across the user journey. It's sometimes called design thinking.
As a UX design agency, we facilitate service design workshops where we bring together:
The goal: Map the complete ecosystem and ensure every touchpoint works together.
The complete user journey:
A proper service design process would have identified that almost every step contains friction, social stigma, or unclear value. We would have flagged these issues long before manufacturing.
When we run service design workshops, here's our process:
Day 1: Problem Identification
Day 2: Ideation and Solution Design
Day 3: Alignment and Planning
This isn't a one-time workshop. It's a continuous practice that should happen throughout product development, not just at the beginning.
The Apple Vision Pro clearly skipped this process. Otherwise someone would have asked: "Who wants to wear these in public?" and the answer would have been: "Nobody."
So if wearables aren't the answer, where is AI actually heading in ways that will improve user experiences?
What's working:
Why it works: Solves annoying tasks, stays invisible, doesn't require new behaviors.
What's emerging:
Why it works: High-value professional use cases justify learning curves and limitations.
What's useful:
Why it works: Augments human creativity rather than replacing it, speeds up tedious parts of creative work.
What works:
Why it works: Solves specific contextual problems where hands-free is genuinely valuable.
What doesn't work: Trying to make voice the only interface or pretending it's always better than visual/touch interfaces.
If you're building AI products or considering wearable technology, here's the framework fractional design officers and UX consultants use:
Don't ask: "How can we use this cool technology?"
Ask instead:
Validate before building. Conduct ethnographic research. Observe users in natural contexts. Identify real pain points, not imagined ones.
Consider every touchpoint:
UX design agencies know that a great core product can fail if any part of the ecosystem is broken.
Don't just build demos. Test with real users in real environments:
Watch for:
Price sensitivity testing:
The Vision Pro at $3,500 is a perfect example of failing to validate price sensitivity.
Critical questions:
Meta's smart glasses fail here because users fundamentally don't trust Facebook with always-on cameras and microphones.
Don't try to be everything to everyone.
Start with one specific, high-value use case:
Master the specific before attempting general consumer products.
Wrong metrics:
Right metrics:
Product design consultants help companies identify metrics that reflect actual user value, not vanity metrics that look good in board presentations.
As fractional UX experts and UX consultants, here's our direct advice:
Our blunt assessment: Unless you're building for specific professional use cases, don't build AI wearables right now.
The technology isn't ready. Users don't want them. The social stigma is real. The privacy concerns are valid. Existing form factors work better.
If you're determined to build them anyway:
UX design agencies exist partly to be organizational skeptics—the people who ask uncomfortable questions before companies commit to expensive mistakes.
Questions we ask:
When everyone in the room is excited about "the future of AI" or "revolutionary wearables" or "the next big thing," someone needs to be the adult saying: "But have we talked to users?"
That's what fractional design officers, product design consultants, and strategic UX consulting firms bring: perspective, skepticism backed by data, and the courage to say "this isn't ready" or "users don't want this."
We've watched multiple waves of "interface revolution" predictions fail:
The pattern: Interface changes happen slowly, driven by solving real problems, not by technological capability.
Smartphones succeeded because they solved real problems (internet access everywhere, better cameras, GPS navigation, app ecosystem) in a socially acceptable form factor.
Smart watches succeeded in limited ways because they solved specific problems (fitness tracking, notifications without pulling out phone, health monitoring) in an existing, accepted form factor.
AI wearables are failing because they don't solve meaningful problems better than existing tools, they introduce social stigma, they raise privacy concerns, and they cost too much.
The companies winning aren't trying to revolutionize how humans interact with technology. They're making incremental improvements to interfaces people already accept and use.
Whether you're building AI products, wearables, or any other technology, we can help you:
Validate before you build:
Design strategically:
Implement responsibly:
Navigate organizational dynamics:
With 35-40 years of combined experience, we've seen companies waste billions on products nobody wanted. We've also helped companies build products that users love and that succeed in the market.
The difference? Starting with strategy, not technology. Beginning with user needs, not engineering capabilities. Validating assumptions before commitment, not after failure.
Building AI products or wearables? As strategic product design consultants, we help companies avoid expensive mistakes by validating assumptions, identifying real user needs, and building products that people actually want to use.
Whether you need early-stage research, strategic planning, or hands-on design and testing, we bring the expertise to help you build right the first time.
Looking for a UX design agency that will tell you the truth about your product—even when it's uncomfortable? Let's talk about how strategic UX can save you from becoming the next cautionary tale in tech hype cycles.
This article is based on content from the UX MURDER MYSTERY podcast.
HOSTED BY: Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden
EDITED BY: Kelsey Smith
INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN: Brian J. Crowley
MUSIC BY: Nicolas Lee
A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden
Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com
Search Engine Optimization is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
EVE’s client, Pacoto based in Chicago, Illinois (IL) is a coach networking website that offers a broad range of coaches from business to wellness.
It can at times be hard to understand how something like social media has had such a large impact on the business world. “…Roughly 94% of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool.”
Several years ago, Facebook launched Blueprint, a global education and certification program for all marketers.
Designing for Virtual Reality (VR) is happening faster than expected.
