Meta rolls out Orion AR glasses

Meta Platforms Inc. rolled out its first pair of augmented reality glasses, which combine a view of the digital and physical worlds, in a crucial step toward chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of eventually offering a hands-free alternative to the smartphone.

Introduced Wednesday, the Orion glasses look like thick, black reading glasses, but lenses embedded in them can flash text messages, video calls, and even YouTube videos onto the user’s field of vision. They are prototypes, not for sale, but will be used by Meta internally for testing and improvements.

There is also an attached wristband for sensing nerve stimulation, as well as cameras put into frames to monitor what is happening with one’s eyes. Such means allow wearers of Orion to “click” or “scroll” on the screen using only their hands.

The eyeglasses represent almost a decade of technological advancement as well as substantial financial investment at Meta. They also give insight into Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of technology, which has cost the company tens of billions of dollars in the last four years.

Meta is already selling Ray-Ban branded smart glasses equipped with cameras and speakers, but Zuckerberg says that AR glasses will become a kind of mobile, hands-free computer that could one-day rival smartphones as the preferred way to communicate and interact online.

Once smart glasses become the new norm, Meta should be one of the biggest players in the smart glasses industry or lessen dependence on competitors like Apple and Alphabet’s Google to get its products to consumers’ hands.

That goal is still years away, despite the unveiling in Menlo Park, California, of an Orion prototype at Meta’s annual Connect conference. Executives had hoped this version would be viable for public release but said it is not yet small or stylish enough. Those same challenges have dogged other efforts by similar tech companies to develop similar head-worn devices over the years, including Google and Microsoft.

In fact, Snap even unveiled its own pair of AR glasses this month, but it is releasing them only to developers.

Eventually, Meta executives believe they will be able to make the glasses so thin and powerful that ordinary users will buy them. The goal is to bring Orion to market in the “next few years” for the price of a “high-end laptop or smartphone”, said Rahul Prasad, a senior director of product management at Meta.

Any kind of prior attempt at AR, he said, has been a headset, goggles, helmets. “We want to get to glasses,” Mr Prasad added.

For now, Meta will continue to build and refine the glasses internally until they are ready for public sale. Hundreds of Meta employees have been testing the Orion glasses. The company plans to expand that group considerably now that the device has been unveiled to the public.