Bose gives up on its augmented reality sound project
Bose is giving up on its augmented reality project, two years after debuting the idea at SXSW. As first reported by Protocol, employees working on AR at the company have left or were laid off; Bose’s partners were told their apps would stop working in the coming weeks; and the company scrubbed mentions of AR from its website in addition to closing its public AR SDK in April. The main proponent of AR at the company, SVP John Gordon, also left last summer.
Bose’s AR focused on sound rather than visuals. It established a $50 million fund for Bose AR developers, and initially worked with 11 software partners including Yelp and TripAdvisor. The company launched its Frames sunglasses in January 2019 for $199, which played audio from the arms. It also featured a microphone and embedded button, as well as app functionality. The AR feature relied on a smartphone’s GPS and a motion sensor to determine where a person was looking and standing. The idea was that the glasses could provide information on whatever someone was seeing.