The realities are finally getting mixed.

While virtual reality essentially takes a user to an experience disconnected from the physical world, the other approach of augmented and mixed reality are about to come on strong.

Millions of consumers got a taste of augmented reality when Niantic launched Pokémon Go two years back.

Now they are soon to experience mixed reality, or mobile MR, which extends augmented reality technologies so that digital objects can be interacted with as they are displayed over physical objects.

The number of mixed reality applications will reach 9 billion by 2022, an increase from 3 billion this year, based on a new study by Juniper Research.  The growth rate over four years is projected at 212%.

Driven by a commitment to MR by Facebook, Google and Apple, content development will accelerate, driving the smartphone MR games market to reach a value of more than $2 billion.

The number of social media applications with forms of augmented reality services will pass 6 billion by 2022, as platforms search for new revenue streams, according to Juniper. The forecast also says that almost all (98%) app revenues will be generated by advertising by 2022, as new models using user’s locations become the best models.

The other major IoT boost coming is 5G, brining ultra-low latency, to fuel the underlying mobile connections needed for MR.

For these new MR devices, voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are expected to be the main input method.

The new realities are just around the corner.