Meta Sparks New Era in Smart Glasses with Innovative Ray-Ban Display Feature

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Meta intends to incorporate displays into its Ray-Ban smart spectacles as early as next year, as the American technology titan accelerates its ambitions to construct lightweight headsets that may surpass smartphones as consumers’ primary computing gadgets.

The $1.5tn social media corporation aims to integrate a screen within the $300 sunglasses it manufactures and sells in collaboration with eyewear group EssilorLuxottica, according to sources acquainted with the proposals.

The revamped Ray-Bans could debut in the latter half of 2025, the sources indicated. The small screen would presumably be utilized to display notifications or interactions from Meta’s virtual assistant.

This initiative unfolds as Meta delves deeper into wearable technology and what chief executive Mark Zuckerberg envisions as the next computing platform, as competitors such as Apple, Google, and Snap also hasten to create comparable products.

In September, Meta revealed its prototype for augmented-reality glasses named Orion. Sources familiar with the situation stated that the company has expedited Orion’s development due to the enthusiastic feedback from initial testers.

These individuals mentioned that Meta has accelerated plans to transition the device into a consumer product, although any launch is likely still years away.

Orion’s compact structure, lightweight build, and groundbreaking displays, which layer 3D content onto the physical world, have been recognized as groundbreaking enhancements after years of unsuccessful AR headsets, including Google-backed Magic Leap and Microsoft’s Hololens.

Meta opted not to comment on its smart glasses strategy. However, in mid-December, Andrew Bosworth, its chief technology officer, noted that 2025 would be “the most significant [year] in the history of Reality Labs,” the division responsible for creating its glasses and Quest virtual reality headsets.

Reality Labs has incurred losses since its establishment in 2020 as part of Zuckerberg’s long-range investment in the metaverse. The division lost $13bn in the initial three quarters of 2024, generating only around $1bn in revenue.

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have unexpectedly gained popularity among consumers following the latest version’s launch in September 2023. The current model includes understated in-ear speakers, cameras, and microphones, for listening to music, taking photos, and conversing with Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant.

While the initial version of a display would likely present simple text and images, it would signify a substantial leap towards unifying the device with Zuckerberg’s long-term vision of AR glasses that can project a virtual environment overlaid upon the actual world.

With the Ray-Bans, “Meta demonstrated that these lightweight spectacles, even without a display, could be engaging and beneficial,” remarked Michael Miller, who oversees augmented reality hardware at Niantic, the creator of Pokémon Go and other AR games.

Meta is still in the nascent stages of exploring what AR headsets might look like. Its Orion glasses are navigated by wristbands that receive signals from the body, including the brain, functioning in a neural interface. One individual familiar with the situation indicated that Meta is also investigating the use of a ring with a touchpad or ball to manage a headset.

Experts argue that the platform faces significant challenges in creating stylish spectacles with sufficient hardware performance and battery longevity, at an appealing price point. There are also considerable supply chain obstacles.

One of Orion’s key innovations is its unique application of silicon carbide lenses. This material has not seen widespread use in optics previously and allows Meta to produce a much larger and brighter image for Orion’s users than is achievable with standard glass.

However, the high cost and lack of large-scale production of silicon carbide lenses pose a considerable hurdle to transforming Orion into an affordable mass-market product while preserving one of its advantages.

“If the current objective is to expedite Orion’s commercialization, one strategy might be to diminish the field of view . . . and utilize more common glass materials,” suggested Miller.

Experts noted that products like Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Apple’s Vision Pro are facilitating consumer acceptance of smart headsets, given the societal acceptance challenges that ultimately hampered Google’s Glass eyewear nearly a decade ago.

The inaugural Ray-Ban Meta glasses were launched in 2021 and had limited sales. Nevertheless, the latest generation, released in October 2023, sold more units in a few months than the previous versions did over two years, as stated by EssilorLuxottica’s CEO Francesco Milleri. The shipments of glasses wearables in 2024 increased by 73 percent across the industry.

Meta’s efforts advance despite Zuckerberg pivoting away from his ambition to create a 3D avatar-populated online realm, referred to as the metaverse. Instead, he has made clear his intention for Meta to emerge as a frontrunner in AI, investing billions in the field, including developing its own open-source large language models.

“What’s starting to become intriguing about the Ray Bans and Orion is the way Meta’s AI strategy is merging with mixed reality,” observed Luke Alvarez, founding general partner at Hiro Capital, which invests in gaming and metaverse technology. “Perhaps [Zuckerberg] can ultimately capture a substantial share of the next-generation operating system, which is evidently his stated aim.”