Sources: Meta chose a Qualcomm chip for the second version of its Ray-Ban smartglasses, after struggling to develop its own custom chip codenamed Brasilia
In late 2021, a team of Meta Platforms employees building a key chip for the second version of Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses was notified …
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta’s reported difficulty with its Brasilia chip was an early inflection point in its smart-glasses hardware strategy. Later coverage says the company abandoned its in-house AR-glasses chip plans in 2023, reinforcing Qualcomm’s role in the product line.
That supplier choice carried into the $299+ Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1, while Meta also pursued a MediaTek partnership for AR-glasses chips. The record points to a multi-supplier approach rather than a near-term return to a single proprietary design.
First-order effects
- Qualcomm becomes the immediate silicon supplier for Meta’s second Ray-Ban smart-glasses version, while the Brasilia effort no longer supplies that product.
- Meta’s glasses team must build around an external chip platform, shifting execution from custom-silicon development to product integration with Qualcomm.
Second-order effects
- Qualcomm gains a design win in a visible Meta wearable program, while Meta’s later MediaTek partnership gives it another potential supplier path for future AR glasses.
- Meta’s ability to differentiate Ray-Ban smart glasses moves more toward the device experience and software features, such as the multimodal AI rollout, than a bespoke chip alone.
Third-order effects
- If Meta continues pairing third-party silicon with its own glasses software, wearable competition will increasingly separate chip suppliers from the companies that control consumer distribution, product design, and AI services.
- The sequence signals a broader hardware-strategy split: companies may reserve custom chips for areas where they can sustain development, while sourcing specialized wearable silicon externally.
The trend: Smart-glasses makers are adopting a mixed hardware model, using merchant silicon for devices while concentrating differentiation in software and AI experiences.