Meta Connect 2024 is now less than a week away and promises to be an impressive showcase of the company's advancements in wearable tech, from a debut VR headset in the Meta Quest 3S to a rumored peek at what the future holds through the Orion AR smart glasses.
However, while the latter has seemingly been alluded to several times, could we be set to see Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg showcase a completely different pair of smart glasses at the Connect keynote on September 25? I'm beginning to wonder.
Meta Orion AR glasses: Written in the stars?
We may not have officially seen Meta's Orion smart glasses yet, but the company hasn't been shy about talking up its "true" AR smart glasses.
While some projects fizzle away in the darkness of an R&D lab, it seems like only a matter of time before Meta pulls the trigger and showcases Orion to the public in full — and there's a growing belief that this month's Meta Connect 2024 event will be the moment it happens.
Meta's future AR glasses, which may have previously gone by the name Nazare, are set to feature a holographic display that allows for a true mixed reality experience. We've seen the company bring mixed reality and AR to the forefront with its most recent Meta Quest 3 headset, but Orion stands as the product that brings similar functionality to the smart glasses form factor.
We've already seen a snapshot of what Meta wants to accomplish with its mixed-reality smart glasses during the 2021 Connect event, which focused on the company's grander vision for the Metaverse.
It was here we saw Meta's smart glasses ambition showcased as the future portal for mixed-reality interactions, with two friends playing chess at a public bench, one of them represented as a ghost-like hologram.
It's the device Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called a "Holy grail," believing it will "redefine our relationship with technology." The Meta boss isn't alone in those thoughts, with the company's CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth also stating that, in the realms of consumer tech, "It might be the most advanced thing we've ever produced as a species."
But are these the frames Meta plans to showcase later this month? I'm still on the fence, but the recent reveal of Snapchat parent company Snap's fifth-generation AR smart glasses is making me doubtful.
Snap back to reality
Snapchat parent company, Snap, has been in the smart glasses game since 2016. In that time they've unveiled five generations of glasses that range from the conventional to the downright questionable.
Its latest pair, the Snap Spectacles 5, unveiled on September 17, fall into the latter category — offering an almost novelty-sized pair of fully AR-capable frames through the technological magic of WaveOptics' (a company Snap acquired in 2021 for over $500 million) waveguide displays and Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro projectors.
The combination of these technologies allows for an AR viewport with a 46-degree diagonal field of view (FoV) and a 37 pixels-per-degree (PPD) resolution, all of which is powered by two Qualcomm Snapdragon chips and running off of a built-in battery that is said to offer 45 minutes of use per charge.
While Snap hasn't exactly shown itself to be a marker of style when it comes to the design of its Spectacles smart glasses in the past, its latest reveal showcased an enormous pair of frames that resembles the kind of ridiculous, disproportionate eyewear you'd doodle onto the faces that adorn a broadsheet newspaper out of boredom.
They're also a world away from the set of frames, captured in a photo of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year, that kickstarted many of the Orion rumors regarding Meta Connect 2024.
Zuckerberg's smart glasses tease for Meta Connect 2024
In a post shared to his personal Threads account in February 2024, Mark Zuckerberg may have accidentally (or intentionally) given us a glimpse of the smart glasses set to debut at Meta Connect 2024.
In the background of an attached image is an unfamiliar pair of smart glasses that feature a hinge further down the temples than other Meta frames, something very reminiscent of AR glasses currently on the market such as the VITURE Pro XR or XREAL Air 2.
When these glasses were pointed out by Boston Globe general manager Matthew Karolian, Zuckerberg responded by stating, "Will be ready to share more later this year."
It's this moment that sparked many theories that we were to finally see Meta's Orion AR glasses at Connect 2024. However, after having seen Snap's Spectacles 5, I have my doubts.
For the time being, the tech required for 'true' AR glasses to function, like that housed within the Snap Spectacles 5, isn't quite suited to effortlessly slotting into the stylish frames of today — much less the frames sat atop Zuckerberg's cluttered desk.
Either Meta is incredibly far ahead of the competition when it comes to its Orion AR smart glasses prototype or the glasses captured within Zuckerberg's Threads post are not the Orion glasses at all.
Meta Hypernova smart glasses: What we know
While Zuckerberg has made claims during recent interviews that the company is "almost ready" to begin showing off its "full holographic glasses," there's no guarantee that he was referring to Orion, or that the term full holographic hasn't been misinterpreted.
Codenamed Hypernova, Meta's third-generation glasses are set to follow the surprisingly popular (even by Meta's own admission) Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
While Meta's current-gen smart glasses offer music playback through built-in temple speakers and a camera to capture media or live stream from a first-person perspective, the Hypernova glasses are said to also feature a holographic heads-up display (HUD).
According to a leaked Meta VR/AR roadmap, these glasses will feature a viewfinder that takes up a small portion of the glasses' visual window which will allow users to read incoming text messages, translate text visually, and even scan QR codes.
Meta showcased a similar HUD during Connect 2022 when it highlighted the work it's been doing with neural interfaces, particularly through its neural wristband — a non-invasive wearable that interprets electrical motor nerve signals in your wrist using Electromyography (EMG).
In the Connect 2022 vignette, Meta's neural wristband was seen allowing the wearer to control the HUD of a pair of smart glasses using subtle hand and finger gestures. Interestingly the same neural wristband also featured in the leaked VR/AR roadmap as a companion to Meta's third-generation Hypernova smart glasses.
During an appearance on the Morning Brew Daily show in February, Zuckerberg (when talking about the neural wristband) stated, "We've been working on this for a while ... it's not a one-year project, but we're quite a few years into it and we're actually kind of close to having something here that we're going to have in a product in the next few years."
Seemingly lining up with this estimation, the leaked VR/AR roadmap implies that both the third-generation Meta smart glasses and neural wristband (which may take the form of a smartwatch) are set to release in 2025.
Outlook
Meta is undoubtedly closing in on an unveiling of its "true" AR glasses. However, given a reported 2025 release date and the size of the frames teased by CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier in the year in contrast to Snap's Spectacles 5, I'd be inclined to believe that there's a more likely smart glasses debut for Connect 2024: Meta's third-generation Hypernova smart glasses.
Of course, we can't say for certain which of Meta's wearables are set to wow the crowds of the Meta campus in Menlo Park, those watching along online, or those attending the virtual Metaverse event in VR. However, the reveal of Snap's smart glasses has certainly poured cold water on the Orion rumor in my mind.
That said, Meta isn't beyond providing some surprises, so we'll be paying close attention to the Connect keynote that kickstarts Meta Connect 2024 on September 25 to know for sure.
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