How Will The Apple Reality Pro Headset Boost 3D Printing?

After nearly a decade of development, Apple
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is finally unveiling its first mixed reality headset. Combining augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), the $3,000 Apple Reality Pro represents not only the company’s first new product line since the Apple Watch, but also a potential paradigm shift in consumer electronics and beyond. More than that, the fact that the world’s most valuable company has entered the AR/VR space actually has significant implications for the $13.5-billion 3D printing industry.

While most AR/VR companies certainly rely on 3D printing to some extent, at least at the level of product design, Apple’s latest product, specifically, may kickstart a niche segment of the industry known as “additively manufactured electronics (AMEs).”

Slimming Electronic Devices with 3D Printing

The tech behemoth’s most notable characteristic is its user-friendly design, combining sleek form factors with intuitive interfaces to fit advanced computational capabilities into compact packages. Accomplishing this task in a phone or tablet is one thing, but doing so in a display that high-end consumers will wear on their faces is a completely different animal.

Head mounted displays (HMD) are notoriously cumbersome, historically requiring wires that anchor users to an accompanying computer. As the need for wires has been shed, manufacturers have had to develop novel methods for incorporating powerful electronics directly into these devices, without adding excessive weight. Otherwise, only the earliest of adopters and most addicted of gamers would wear such HMDs. However, if Apple is releasing a mixed reality headset, it has found a way to achieve the goal of a lightweight, compact HMD.

To those who have been following the 3D printing industry, the most obvious method for squeezing electronics into small spaces is to use AMEs. With 3D printing, it’s possible to spray conductive traces onto curved surfaces using a technology called Aerosol Jet, from Optomec, which allows electronic features to be incorporated into the structure of a product, rather than force entirely separate components into already tight spaces.

The Sandia National Labs spinout has sold Aerosol Jet printers to Google
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, Meta, Samsung and has all-but-confirmed that Apple is using the process, as well. By 2016, Taiwanese manufacturer Lite-On Mobile used these systems to spray antennas onto millions of mobile phones before its then-senior manager of Technology Development for Antennas, Henrik Johansson, left to work for Apple.

Since then, Aerosol Jet applications have expanded from antennas to chip production, with one user having shipped hundreds of thousands of devices with 3D printed semiconductor packaging. Driving Moore’s Law to shrink electronics further, Optomec’s technique can 3D print tiny chip interconnects, circuitry, resistors and more. This means embedding these electronic components directly into small spaces, resulting in a potentially lighter form factor.

Meta to 3D Print AR Lenses

However, it isn’t Aerosol Jet alone that may be used by these companies to shrink devices. In December 2022, Meta acquired optics firm Luxexcel with a goal of using its lens printing process to create AR glasses. Luxexcel’s method produces optically clear polymers with the ability to integrate waveguides, necessary for transparent displays, into its lenses. It’s no coincidence then that the social media-turned-metaverse giant will be releasing the newest version of its Quest Pro headset late this year, a device said to rival Apple’s Reality Pro.

It’s also significant that Meta has been publicly disclosed as an Aerosol Jet customer because, in 2016, back when it was called Facebook, the company purchased a startup called Nascent Objects. The firm developed a technique to 3D print modular consumer goods with built-in electronics. Seven years later, could Meta be 3D printing electronics into its newest HMD?

Electronics 3D printing has become somewhat of an open secret in the additive manufacturing industry, with many companies advertising the technology’s use, but without commenting on specific use cases and customers. Boston Micro Fabrication, for instance, has said that the ability of its printers to produce tiny plastic parts has been used by manufacturers to make chip array sockets, connector bases, and printed circuit board assemblies.

Even if companies like Apple and Meta aren’t currently using electronics 3D printing to produce their headsets, the potential of the technology to fit smaller electronics into tighter spaces will surely lead to the deployment of 3D printing as HMDs take off. As the Apple Reality Pro and Meta Quest Pro 3 hit the market, they may still appeal to a niche segment of consumers—at first. However, Apple plans to release less expensive headsets in 2024 and 2025, increasing the accessibility of its products.

Many of us may not be ready to wear our smartphones on our faces, but, then again, many of us weren’t ready to shove our computers in our pockets a decade ago. So, if Apple is ready for AR and VR, the rest of the world may need to get ready. In the process, the secret of electronics 3D printing will gradually be made more public, adding fuel to a sector already primed to re-shore manufacturing globally.