Meta is set to unveil its next pair of AR glasses later this year, as confirmed by its CEO and king of the ring, Mark Zuckerberg. While that’s already news that may excite Meta Ray-Bans fans, the only hints of a new product itself come from a blurry photo of a large pair of glasses that bend in a few awkward places.
Boston Globe general manager Matthew Karolian posted a blurry photo of glasses that fold near the lens and midway through each arm. Zuck responded to the Threads post late into the night Sunday in a way that effectively confirmed we were looking at the next pair of AR glasses. He said, “I will be ready to share more later this year.” Likely, that will likely be Meta’s annual connect conference set to take place on Sept. 25. That’s the same conference where Meta first showed off the latest Ray-Ban smart glasses last year.
As reported last week by The Information based on anonymous sources, the next pair of Meta glasses will have more altered reality capabilities, with the right-hand lens acting as a heads-up display using typical projection tech. The report noted these glasses could be pretty heavy at about 70 grams. That’s close to twice as much as your typical pair of sunglasses. Hence, that’s probably why the device in those images has a pretty chunky silhouette. The bend in the glasses’ arms could help compensate for some heft, but we’ll need better renders to speculate.
Meta is reportedly bent out of shape over the branding for its next big step in mixed reality. The question is whether the next pair of glasses will maintain that high-profile Ray Ban branding. The Information’s report claimed the next set of glasses is ditching the Ray-Ban logo, but there’s more at stake than the name. Two new reports claim Google wants a piece of the glasses pie and that the tech giant is trying to muscle out Meta on EssilorLuxottica’s dude-bro brand.
The Financial Times and Bloomberg initially reported last week, based on anonymous sources, that Meta could try to spend millions of dollars buying a 5% stake in glasses monolith EssilorLuxottica. The deal is not yet finalized, but according to reports, Meta’s working with Morgan Stanley on the deal. According to a report from The Verge, Google is also trying to court EssilorLuxottica to put the company’s Gemini AI model on future pairs of glasses. Meta already added vision and voice capabilities of its Llama AI model to last year’s Meta Ray Bans.
The glasses have proved very popular, perhaps even more so than the Meta Quest 3. EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said last week that this latest pair of AR glasses sold twice as much as the initial set of Ray Ban Stories.
For those who don’t remember the Google Glass controversies of yesteryear, you probably don’t remember that Google originally partnered with Luxottica (before the merger with Essilor in 2017) on the original Google smart glasses. Those glasses never looked good, especially with the large Borg-like lens piece sticking out the front. If the Mountain View tech giant wants to hitch its next product to a legacy glasses brand again, it must make something that fits into the style-first philosophy of a product like Ray Ban.
If Meta’s AR glasses are indeed those hefty pairs we saw in the blurry Threads image, then EssilorLuxottica might be hard-pressed to present them to its typical customer base as the next big thing. Even if your glasses can whisper AI-generated weather reports into your ear, there won’t be much interest if you can’t wear them without feeling self-conscious.
