Meta unveils an Orion prototype, its first AR glasses, with a 70-degree FoV, a wireless neural input wristband, silicon carbide lenses, and micro-LED projectors
they could put the iPhone on notice Peter Kafka / Business Insider : I tried out Meta's Orion computer glasses. I'd buy them in a heartbeat — if they were actually for sale. Jon Keegan / Sherwood News : Either Zuck or nothing Brian Heater / TechCrunch : Meta teases Orion, brain-powered true AR glasses in a tiny package Threads: Victoria Song / @vicmsong : So given all the cool news today, a reminder about the biggest challenge smart glasses face: Not everyone likes or wants to wear glasses. Meta's done an excellent job partnering with EssilorLuxxotica to make its glasses look stylish but will anyone who doesn't *need* glasses want to wear smart glasses all day, every day? They might if the tech is cool enough. But it has to be cool enough. Navneet Alang / @navneetalang : AR glasses feel inevitable to me. I think it's one of those things that is just going to happen, and then you figure out what to do with it. All reality is already augmented, even if just implicitly. This manifests a basic relation between a perceiving subject and the world around it. Neil Cybart / @neil.cybart : Imagine if Tim Cook got on stage, unveiled a prototype headset that won't be sold to consumers because Apple couldn't figure out how to manufacture it at scale, and then claimed Apple is leading with such innovation. People would call for Cook's resignation (and rightly so). @documentingmeta : I mean yeah sure definitely better than almost every other company but not Apple They're definitely poised to become the Android of the AR/wearable tech phase where Google is yet to start. But Apple has an incredible lead here and will leverage their ecosystem to deliver an incredible experience. … Nick Statt / @nick_statt : I gotta say I did not have much faith after the Meta rebrand and the very public metaverse play that didn't land well. And yet everything the company has done since acquiring Oculus does seem to now be paying off, and they're currently far ahead on the intersection of AI, AR, and consumer hardrware than Apple, Magic Leap, etc. If anyone is going to win here, it's seems increasingly likely to be Meta. @filipe.esposito : Imagine if Tim Cook got up on stage and promoted a new phone with features that don't exist (and won't exist for months to come). Karl Bode / @kbode : the good news is the battery life is probably like 30 minutes, so it's impossible to look terrible for long stretches Lauren Goode / @laurengoode : I am here to remind you that waveguide-based augmented reality has been attempted many many times and it is very hard and it doesn't mean Meta *won't* be the company to nail it, it just means it's not a novel idea https://www.wired.com/... @eshumarneedi : Spicy take: Meta is too incompetent to build a product as complex as Orion and sell it for a “reasonable” (Over $3,500) price. Sung Kim / @sung.kim.mw : The best thing about Meta's Orion announcement is that it will encourage other players to continue investing in the AR/VR space. Competition is good! Tom Warren / @tomwarrenuk : on the flip side, I love these new translucent Ray-ban smart glasses from Meta. They do enough useful things already and they look great https://www.theverge.com/... RE: https://www.threads.net/... [images] Tom Warren / @tomwarrenuk : Meta hyping up AR smart glasses that it's not shipping reminds me of HoloLens. Both show that this tech is many years away from being in glasses you'll actually want to wear every day https://www.theverge.com/... [image] Jack Benjamin / @jackcarterbenjamin : I don't know if I've fully bought into the idea that smart glasses will replace phones for most people, but these prototypes are about as close as you can get to what the ideal version of the device should look like. They're pretty stylish and the tech looks impressive. And they're infinitely more useable than the Vision Pro and Quest headsets for a larger set of situations. If Apple isn't developing a version of this (eg Apple Vision, hold the Pro) then they're missing a trick. Rob Sherman / @robsherman : We're thrilled to be able to introduce Orion to the world today at Connect. We've been talking about the future we're working toward for years — and it's always been too theoretical for most people. So it's incredible to be able to show that the technology we've envisioned — and the promise of improving how people live and work — are here, today. Parker Ortolani / @parkerortolani : the Meta AR glasses do indeed look like *the thing* https://www.youtube.com/... Mastodon: Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith … : It feels obvious today that visionOS will be stripped-down/downscaled to something closer to the Apple Watch SoC, and put in glasses like these someday. Likely losing all of its immersive modes, but keeping the OS and windowing. That's the kind of device that can obviate the iPhone. … @jsnell@zeppelin.flights : @viticci yep. Also Meta admitting that they tried to make this a product but it's “years” away... is strikingly similar to Gurman's reports about Apple doing the same thing. Apple just doesn't show its prototypes. — It does make me think this is happening sooner than I expected, though. @viticci@mastodon.macstories.net : The end goal was always glasses - never VR headsets. — I'm incredibly excited about a near future where AR glasses look like regular glasses we can wear. — Meta's Orion prototype looks promising. But when I look at this picture, all I can think is: — iPhone + glasses + Apple Watch. … Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith … : “visionOS on glasses is a decade away! It's technically impossible today” — Meanwhile: — https://www.youtube.com/... X: Dylan / @dylanmcd8 : @BenjaminDEKR It's a prototype. I guarantee you Apple has stuff like this somewhere in Apple Park. But they're not gonna show off a prototype they have no intention of publicly launching lol Arian Ghashghai / @arian_ghashghai : The first big step towards real consumer AR (side note, I'm amazed they've achieved this in 2024 — looked impossible when I left Meta last year) @benjamindekr : Meta Orion AR glasses. Explain to me why Apple didn't do this? Steve Jobs would have. [image] Ray Wong / @raywongy : I would pay original Quest Pro pricing for the Meta Orion smart glasses. They're very fucking cool. You really need to try them to understand how advanced they are Makes Snap's Spectacles 5 looks goofy af. It's becoming clearer that offloading compute to a “puck” is the [image] Juan Linietsky / @reduzio : Interesting to see that Meta is taking the opposite approach to Apple and focusing on a low power wearable hardware for augmented reality. This makes a ton more sense in my opinion. Meantime, Google just patiently waits, as they know their apps will be the most used on either.. Greg White / @eggswhite : @RihardJarc Agree. $META may be the first real threat to $AAPL iphone. More innovation with all the glasses & headsets from $META than iphone. Could be the form factor that takes share / excitement from iphone much like the iphone did to the laptop. $AAPL is more marketing than innovation. David Heaney / @heaney555 : @DylanMcD8 It's the future. But it's not the present. These cost $10,000 each to build. For the foreseeable, mixed reality headsets will be 20x cheaper and an overall better experience. Dylan / @dylanmcd8 : Orion is extremely exciting!! Finally, capable AR glasses that ACTUALLY LOOK like glasses. I truly believe this is the future. Also... the visionOSification of their OS continues lol [image] @benjamindekr : Actually if you showed this pic to someone a year ago and told you it was Apple (not Meta), they'd 100% believe you. Sebastiaan de With / @sdw : I think a $1.5 trillion mega-corp showcasing concept-car like ‘AR Glasses’ in a demo on rails without actually making a shipping product should be universally ridiculed and derided more than someone making an app selling wallpapers [image] Daniel Sinclair / @_danielsinclair : 14 years from the kickoff at Magic Leap, waveguides were the right direction after all. Bilawal Sidhu / @bilawalsidhu : Meta is onto a winning formula pairing neural wrist bands with these next-gen AR glasses. It's funny, in an alternate universe this is what you'd think Apple would've shipped vs the Vision Pro. [video] Ben Thompson / @benthompson : “Uh what if the glasses thing isn't a zero” [Image: Meta stock up 2.25%] Ben Geskin / @bengeskin : Meta is continuing product optimizations and lowering costs driving toward a scalable consumer device that will revolutionize the way people interact with the world. Darshan Shankar / @dshankar : Quest 3S is great for VR & massively growing the audience, but the most exciting tech at Connect: Orion AR glasses. 70° FOV is insane! Meta's AR work is highly underrated & far ahead of other AR attempts. Meta RayBans have solid mainstream use cases without severe compromises Ed Ludlow / @edludlow : NEWS: from interview with Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth on Orion. More than 90% chance that Orion converts to a consumer product. Two next gen models are in the works. Looking for alternative to Silicon Carbide. It's great but an alternative would bring cost of AR glasses Jitesh Ubrani / @jiteshubrani : Meta's Orion glasses have enough tech to convince people who don't wear glasses regularly to wear glasses all day long — provided the battery lasts. This is going to be a long journey to develop scale, but Meta seems to be further ahead than many others #MetaConnect2024 Jitesh Ubrani / @jiteshubrani : Having a discreet way to control the UI on any AR glasses is going to be key. North Focals were one of the firsts to do this with a ring, Meta's relying on a wristband. Both are going way better than pure hand tracking solutions. #MetaConnect2024 Ben Bajarin / @benbajarin : If I had to bet, Meta could make the Orion concept AI/AR smart glasses a commercial product in 2027. Getting the costs down will be among the key factors for that timing. @meta : Orion is full of entirely new technologies we've developed, including our most advanced AR display ever assembled and custom silicon that enables powerful AR experiences to run on a standalone pair of glasses using a fraction of the power and weight of a headset or cellphone. @meta : Orion's input and interaction system seamlessly combines voice, eye gaze, and hand tracking, allowing you to stay present in the world and with the people around you. While they're not available to the public, we're excited about what this means for the future of connection. @meta : And last but certainly not least, the AR glasses that will blow your mind—Orion. (Before you ask, no they're not available to the public *yet*) Boz / @boztank : We just unveiled Orion, our full AR glasses prototype that we've been working on for nearly a decade. When we started on this journey, our teams predicted that we had a 10% chance (at best) of success. This was our project to see if our dream AR glasses—wide FOV display, less than 100 grams, wireless—were actually possible to build. Not only do they work, we'll be using them internally as a time machine to help build the core experiences and interaction paradigms needed for the consumer AR glasses we plan to launch in the coming years. TL;DR: We built it, just like we said we would =) Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : I had the chance to use Meta's Orion glasses yesterday. They were lighter, more comfortable, more attractive, with a wider field of view and brighter/richer screen than I expected. Eye tracking that felt as sharp as the Vision Pro. The EMG band superb. Future coming into view. [image] LinkedIn: Farbod Shakouri : Great progress with AR tech, but it's hard to look beyond the obvious here... Orion weighs nearly 100g (which is not far from a Nokia brick) and comes with a wireless puck. … Stuart Pitts : Today is a big day for Meta and the whole industry 🌎 We announced: — #1 New Meta Quest 3S, our most affordable mixed reality headset … Luc Dahlin : The era of the smartphone is nearing its end... Meta's new Orion AR Glasses are going to revolutionize everything - education, healthcare, entertainment, how we connect with others, and so on. … Naeem Komeilipoor : 🚀 Huge shoutout to Meta for launching Orion, the most advanced AR glasses yet! — Currently, control relies on a wristband neural interface … Emil Protalinski : Meta today unveiled its first AR glasses. — Unfortunately, Orion are still a prototype: https://lnkd.in/gN8E_AZa … Giovanni Beninca de Farias : Today, we unveilled Orion to the world! It is the first true AR device in glass form factor, with a very wide FOV and a true immersive experience. … Brent Harris : Orion is here and it is the future. Nirav Shah : Meta announced “We are building AR glasses” 5 years ago. Fast forward to today when Meta announced “We have built AR glasses”. The future is here! … Steve Fuertes : Today at #metaconnect we announced some things that I've been working on the last few years that I am excited to finally share. … Rohit Sonwalkar : Working at Meta over the last 9 months has been a blast. We, at Reality Labs, are working hard to redefine the future of human interaction. … Forums: r/singularity : META: ‘Introducing Orion, Our First True Augmented Reality Glasses’ r/augmentedreality : Meta AI introduces project Orion, holographic glasses with 6dof capability and a FOV of 70°. Only development kit but a glimpse into what they're up to. Msmash / Slashdot : Meta Unveils AR Glasses Prototype