​Smart glasses are growing insanely fast and nobody’s talking about the app opportunity

I came across this while writing a report on the XR industry.

In 2024, two Harvard students paired Ray-Ban glasses with a facial recognition API and identified strangers on the subway in seconds. It would get their name, phone number, and home address with off-the-shelf hardware and public APIs. They decided not to release the product and are building something else (they remove you from these public directories so you can’t be found this easily).

Ray-Ban Meta sold 7 million pairs in 2025. Triple the year before. The hardware is already out there.

The focus is on what Meta builds natively on these smart glasses, but there is a real opportunity in third-party apps on a camera millions of people wear on their faces daily.

You can pick any niche and build a product around it since the developer market is so barren now.

For example. Take gambling. Smart glasses + computer vision:

Live pot odds and hand equity during a poker game Opponent tendencies tracked across a session Card counting in blackjack

Obviously idk the legality of it, but it is technically feasible. Think about all the other applications you can have for tech like this.

That’s just one niche. Pick any situation where someone’s hands are busy. What would you build?