Envisioning Audio Augmented Reality in Everyday Life

While visual augmentation dominates the augmented reality landscape, devices like Meta Ray-Ban audio smart glasses signal growing industry movement toward audio augmented reality (AAR). Hearing is a primary channel for sensing context, anticipating change, and navigating social space, yet AAR's everyday potential remains underexplored. We address this gap through a collaborative autoethnography (N=5, authoring) and an online survey (N=74). We identify ten roles for AAR, grouped into three categories: task- and utility-oriented, emotional and social, and perceptual collaborator. These roles are further layered with a rhythmic and embodied collaborator framing, mapping them onto micro-, meso-, and macro-rhythms of everyday life. Our analysis surfaces nuanced tensions, such as blocking distractions without erasing social presence, highlighting the need for context-aware design. This paper contributes a foundational and forward-looking framework for AAR in everyday life, providing design groundwork for systems attuned to daily routines, sensory engagement, and social expectations.

Topic Context: Affordable AR/VR devices are making spatial computing mainstream.

Source: arXiv PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.21271v1