Meta Wants to 'Revolutionize' Wearables with New Smart Glasses
1min read Meta plans to integrate displays into its Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses as early as 2025, advancing the company's development in wearable technology.
According to insiders, Meta will collaborate with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica to develop these new smart glasses. They will feature a display that prompts notifications and responses from Meta's virtual assistant and have an expected overall price tag of $300.
This news has caused quite a stir in the market, with the AI glasses sector on the A-share securities market showing a rebound trend during the midday session.
In fact, the existing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are already a popular product from Meta. After launching the latest model in September 2023, they unexpectedly became a hit among consumers, with the glasses featuring sensitive in-ear speakers, cameras, and microphones, becoming a hot-selling item in 60% of Ray-Ban stores in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Last week, Meta also launched three new features for its Ray-Ban smart glasses, including real-time artificial intelligence, real-time translation, and Shazam integration (music recognition function), which are currently only available to users in the United States and Canada.
If the latest reported progress goes smoothly, Meta will be able to maintain its position as a "leader" in augmented reality (AR) and wearable computing.
A consensus in the tech industry is that wearable and AR technologies are likely to replace smartphones as the next key computing platform.
Therefore, not only is Meta continuously pushing into wearable devices, but competitors such as Apple, Google, and Snap are also competing to develop their own similar products in this field.
In September this year, Meta launched its augmented reality glasses prototype Orion, which, according to insiders, was accelerated in development due to the enthusiastic response from early testers.
Orion is Meta's first full-featured prototype AR glasses, equipped with a wristband component to receive users' neural signals, allowing customers to control Orion with their brains, a technology derived from the company's acquisition of CTRL-Labs in 2019.
Users of these glasses can control the glasses through a combination of eye tracking, hand tracking, voice, and neural wristbands. Its large field of view, holographic display, silicon carbide lenses, and new human-computer interaction modes are all highlights, giving Meta the confidence to call it the best AR glasses.
The latest reported idea of integrating a display into Ray-Ban smart glasses marks another step forward for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision of lightweight AR headsets, aligning with Meta's strategy of integrating advanced technology into everyday wearable devices.