Meta’s $299 Ray-Ban Smart Glasses June Wang/ZDNET
AR glasses have been around in some form for several years, including the ill-fated Google Glass, but have largely struggled to gain a foothold in the market.
Mark Zuckerberg is hoping to change that, as Meta plans to unveil its first “true” augmented reality glasses at the company’s Connect event for third-party developers this fall, according to Business Insider.
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The glasses have been in development for several years under Meta’s Reality Labs division, unrelated to the 2019 Meta and Ray-Ban collaboration or the 2023 redesign. Meta oversees all of the social media giant’s augmented reality, virtual reality, and virtual reality efforts. Artificial intelligence project.
Not much is known about the project, but earlier this month Zuckerberg posted a photo in a thread that appeared to show several prototypes of the device. Meta reportedly hopes to have a working demo of the glasses ready for release later this year, but a consumer version is likely still years away from being available for purchase. .
With the unexpected success of the Meta Quest 3 headset (named 2023 Product of the Year by ZDNET), it’s clear that Meta has a new focus on wearables. So what can Meta’s new glasses do and what can they be used for?
The company’s first Ray-Ban was primarily focused on listening to music and recording videos, rather than AR. The 2023 version added built-in Meta AI to answer questions and a much-improved camera with live streaming capabilities, but they stopped at smart glasses.
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Meta’s latest venture appears to go beyond smart glasses and will likely be similar to Xreal’s AR glasses with spatial computing capabilities built around Apple’s Vision Pro headset. These glasses have a built-in display with part of the air cast, virtual desktop, and AR space that you can use to play games, watch movies, or use it as an extension of your computer screen.
There are certainly some great possibilities to explore, but here’s a question. Can Meta finally make AR glasses mainstream?
