A comfort analysis of AR glasses on physical load during long-term wearing

Abstract

The present study investigated the effect of the physical load of augmented reality (AR) glasses on subjective assessments for an extended duration of a video viewing task. Ninety-six subjects were recruited for this test and were divided by spectacle use, sex, age, and body mass index (BMI). Four glasses frame weights were assessed. To investigate their effectiveness, a novel prototype adopting three design interventions, (1) adjustable frame width, (2) ergonomic temples, and (3) fixed centre of gravity, was designed with regard to subjective discomfort ratings (nose, ear, and overall). Subjective discomfort in all regions was significantly increased with increasing physical load on the nose. In addition, non-spectacle users, women, older users, and participants in the middle BMI category reported higher discomfort than other groups. This finding could have important implications for the ergonomic design of AR glasses and could help to identify design considerations relevant to the emerging wearable display industry.

Practitioner summary: This research aims to explore the influence of the physical load of augmented reality (AR) glasses. It found that discomfort was increased with added nose load. Non-spectacle users, women, older users, and participants in the middle BMI category were more sensitive to discomfort. The results have important implications for glasses-type wearables’ design.

Keywords:

• AR glasses
• prolonged wearing
• physical load
• wearing comfort

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the staff in the Anthropometry and Wearables Design Lab at Hunan University. Special thanks are given to the participants involved in this study. The authors also appreciate the anonymous reviewers’ comments in helping to refine this paper before publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant number 2021YFF0900600).