Meta offers a glimpse through its supposed iPhone killer: Orion

Meta unveils Orion smart glasses, integrating AR, AI, and gesture tech, but release is years away with challenges ahead.

: Meta presented its Orion smart glasses prototype, heavily integrating augmented reality, eye-tracking, and generative AI. The glasses are still in development, expected to take years to market due to their current high cost and bulky design. Orion needs further advancement and cost reduction to become mainstream. Meta also introduced the more affordable Ray-Ban Meta glasses, indicating the company's gradual approach towards advanced AR wearables.

Meta has introduced Orion, a prototype of their smart glasses aimed to potentially replace the iPhone. Incorporating augmented reality, eye and hand tracking, and generative AI, Orion represents a significant leap but remains costly at $10,000 and quite bulky. It necessitates a wristband and wireless compute puck to function, signifying that its viability as a market product is still years away.

Competitors like Snap, Google, and Apple are also exploring similar AR glasses technology, highlighting a brewing competition to create the next big wearable gadget. Meta's head of Reality Labs, Andrew Bosworth, and VP of product Li-Chen Miller emphasize that Orion needs to become more economical and practical for everyday use. Despite the high cost and developmental challenges, the overarching goal remains an affordable, comfortable, and highly capable AR device.

Currently, Meta offers the Ray-Ban Meta glasses at $299, which showcase simpler functionality compared to Orion but serve as an initial step towards more advanced wearables. These glasses use generative AI to interact with the environment, albeit with current limitations that Meta aims to improve. Both Ray-Ban Meta and Orion underline Meta’s vision of the future where smart glasses could seamlessly integrate into daily life.

augmented realitySmart glassesMeta