With CES 2020 rapidly drawing to a close, we've seen a number of new VR and AR glasses and accessories being launched, and I'll be writing a full report on those market developments shortly. For me by far the biggest news was almost sneaked out - Samsung showed a pair of AR glasses at their keynote, and yet barely mentioned them!

Perhaps it was fitting to keep the focus off the hardware. After all, the theme of the keynote was the "age of experience", not "hey, look at the tech specs of our new devices". The experience being demonstrated was GEMS (Gait Enhancing & Motivating System), essentially a personal fitness suite. You can click on the image below to see it in action.



Through the use of AR, a personal fitness trainer appears in the room to instruct and motivate, while the user wears some motion tracking devices. The focus was indeed entirely on the experience, and nothing was revealed about the glasses - they have no name, launch date or price as yet. The biggest question on my mind was also left unanswered - are they standalone devices, or is the computational power on a Samsung smartphone? That a major smartphone OEM will launch smartphone-tethered AR glasses is my key prediction for 2020. After less than a week, has my prediction come true already?

We will be assessing this, and other AR and VR launches at CES 2020, in our upcoming show report.