Meta is reportedly planning to unveil its first pair of augmented reality glasses at its developer conference later this year.
According to a report by Business Insider, Meta will demo the specs at Connect but will not immediately make them available for purchase. The Facebook owner has not yet revealed a date for Connect 2024, but it’s typically held in September or October.
Business Insider cited two people “familiar with the matter” but provided no further information. The project is referred to as Orion internally, they said.
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemingly revealed multiple pairs of glasses in a nostalgic post to Threads a few weeks ago. The post of two photos side by side showed Zuckerberg now and in the early days of Facebook.
Post by @zuckView on Threads
Scattered around his desk are several pairs of glasses, one of which is the Orion prototype, a source said. Some of the pairs are visibly different to Meta’s existing smart glasses, made in partnership with Ray-Ban.
Is Meta Dropping Hints?
Talk of Meta’s AR glasses is not new.
In an interview at the end of last year, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth waxed lyrical about a pair of glasses being used internally by Meta staff, only to dampen excitement by claiming they will likely never see the light of day.
“It’s probably our most exciting prototype that we’ve had to date,” he said.
“I might get myself in trouble for saying this; I think it might be the most advanced piece of technology on the planet in its domain. In the domain of consumer electronics, it might be the most advanced thing that we’ve ever produced as a species.”
The downside, he said, is the cost to build them means it’s unlikely they’ll ever be commercially available. It’s not clear if the prototype Bosworth mentioned is the same as the one reportedly set for a 2024 reveal.
The cost of the glasses does not mean Meta is giving up on AR glasses, however. Bosworth said the firm is working towards a middle ground that balances quality and performance with price.
In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with the Meta Ray-Bans.
Meta entered the glasses market through this partnership in 2021, creating “smart” frames that record audio and video and play music through built-in speakers.
The glasses became ‘smarter’ last year when Meta added its generative AI technology to let users before basic tasks audibly.
Meta’s extended reality line is led by the Meta Quest 3, which launched last year.
Posting on Instagram last month, Zuckerberg declared the Quest 3 not just better value than Apple’s Vision Pro but better altogether.
