Meta

Meta teases that ‘nothing prepares you’ for its upcoming AR glasses

Ben Schoon | Apr 26 2024 - 12:45 pm PT

The idea of AR glasses has been tried time and time again with minimal success. In a new interview, though, Meta is teasing that its upcoming “full” AR glasses will be super impressive, invoking a reaction similar to the original Oculus Rift.

Meta has been pursuing an AR future for quite some time, especially through the Quest line of headsets. But, for anyone looking forward to a future of AR, headsets have never been the end goal. Rather, it’s all about the idea of augmenting reality through a simple pair of glasses.

For a while now, Meta has been working behind the scenes on “Project Nazare,” a pair of AR glasses. They were originally targeting a release this year, but ended up being delayed due to weight and software roadblocks.

In an interview with Android Central this week, Meta’s Caitlin Kalinowski – Head of AR Glasses Hardware at Meta – teased big things for the company’s AR efforts.

Kalinowski says that her current project is “a full pair of AR glasses,” explaining that the glasses will have the “same degree of ‘oh my God, WOW! I can’t believe this!'” as the original Oculus Rift – Kalinowski previously led VR hardware at Oculus. She adds that “customers are going to be able to see both the original photons of the real world in addition to what overlay you effectively want to have,” meaning this won’t simply be another headset like Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro. These glasses will actually augment reality, rather than recreating it.

She teases that “nothing prepares you for the high field of view immersion” of Meta’s AR glasses, though without going into specifics. Android Central points out that this is likely achieved through microOLED projectors as has leaked previously. Kalinowski also mentioned that AI will play a huge role in the final product, as the roadmap internally has changed to “take advantage of this AI revolution.”

But, as exciting as it sounds, Meta’s AR glasses are reportedly still at least a few more years away from debut.

In the meantime, Meta has just updated its existing smart glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta, with new AI features that take advantage of voice and camera input. Those glasses can be purchased starting at $299.