Meta Reveals AR Glasses Prototype Orion, Updates Ray-Ban Smart Glasses

Facebook parent Meta has revealed a prototype for a future product: fully holographic Augmented Reality (AR) glasses.

Nearly a decade in the making, CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off a working prototype, named Orion, at the Meta Connect keynote this week.

The company says it plans on further developing the design to make it a bit “smaller and more fashionable” before bringing the product to market.

It says that Orion weighs less than 100 grams, has a wide field of view, and holographic displays that are sharp enough to pick up details and bright enough to see in different lighting conditions.

The display doesn’t use passthrough — what the wearer sees is the real physical world with holograms overlaid onto it. These holograms might be a cinematic screen, a desktop window for working, a game, a little app window for replying to messages, or even a hologram version of the person you’re on a call with.

The display’s screen isn’t made of glass, but of silicon carbide and uses tiny projectors in the arms of the glasses that “shoot light into waveguides that have nano-scale 3D structures etched into the lenses that can refract light” and “put holograms of different depths and sizes in the world in front of you.”

The frames are made of magnesium to keep the glasses light and to radiate heat away instead of using a fan. Zuckerberg noted there was a battery in the arms of the glasses, but also mentioned a “small puck” that would be used to help power the wearable.

To interact with the glasses, users will use AI with voice, hand-tracking, eye-tracking, and something called a wrist-based neural interface, reported Digital Trends.

Zuckerberg referenced someone being able to “send a signal from your brain to the device” to interact with it when other methods would be inconvenient. He didn’t elaborate any further on how this would work or what you would be able to do with it, however, so it seems this feature is still a secret for now and a work in progress.

Before Meta is ready to release the glasses, Zuckerberg says they still have to refine it such as making the display system sharper, improving the design, and working on the manufacturing process to make it more affordable. The Orion will be made available to some Meta employees and select external audiences so that the dev team can take on feedback and refine it. Meta says that it hopes to can begin shipping of its consumer AR glasses product line “in the near future” without specifying any concrete dates.

Meta Updates Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Zuckerberg also announced major updates to the company’s Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Some of Meta’s new features include real-time AI video processing and live language translation. You can even ask Meta AI to record and send voice messages on WhatsApp and Messenger.

The real-time AI video capabilities means you can ask the Ray-Ban Meta glasses questions about what you’re seeing in front of you, and Meta AI will verbally answer you in real-time.

Zuckerberg also announced live language translation for Ray-Ban Meta. English-speaking users can talk to someone speaking French, Italian, or Spanish, and their Ray-Ban Meta glasses should be able to translate what the other person is saying into their language of choice and which the user will be able to hear through the glasses’ open-ear speakers. Meta says this feature is coming later this year and will include support for more languages subsequently.

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are also getting reminders, which will allow people to ask Meta AI to remind them about things they look at through the smart glasses. For example, it can recall where you parked within a mall’s parking lot.

Meta announced that integrations with Amazon Music, Audible, and iHeart are coming to its smart glasses too. Users can listen to music on their streaming service of choice using the glasses’ built-in speakers.

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also gain the ability to scan QR codes or phone numbers from the glasses. Users can ask the glasses to scan something, and the QR code will immediately open on the person’s phone.

Meta also unveiled a range of new of Transitional lenses, which respond to ultraviolet light to adjust to the brightness of the room you’re in.