This week saw the latest clues in Meta’s beleaguered but potentially-promising spatial computing roadmap. Otherwise known as extended reality, we’re talking about the spectrum of AR, VR, and MR. These are often lumped into the gaming realm but have other endpoints, such as local commerce.
Before getting into those implications, what’s the latest? Bloomberg’s prolific sleuth Mark Gurman revealed a few internal projects at Meta. These include a more specialized version of Ray-Ban Meta Spartglasses for athletes, built around Oakley’s Sphaera style of wraparound sunglasses.
Meanwhile, a separate effort called Project Hypernova involves consumer-geared Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses that have a display system for the first time. This brings them from AI glasses with audio output to something that offers visuals. In other words, it gets closer to the elusive dream of AR glasses.
Moreover, it elevates an underrated flavor of AR: visual search. Seen so far in tools like Google Lens, it’s all about visually querying the world around you and activating annotations to contextualize objects and places. Confined so far to mobile form factors, its best self will be ambient and line-of-sight.
Tone Down the Tech
Stepping back, Meta’s spatial computing efforts need a bit more explanation and nuance than typically applied. There are a few tracks in its spatial play. For example, Meta Quest is mostly a VR gaming device but increasingly utility-driven with passthrough video (a.k.a .mixed reality) for AR experiences.
Then there’s Orion – a moonshot and a glimpse of where the company wants to be in 10 years. It’s an appealing proposition for “all-day AR” in a pair of normal-looking glasses that everyday folks might actually wear. We say it’s 10 years away because it’s just a prototype… and it costs $10k to build.
The third track is Ray Ban Meta Smartglasses. These have been the most popular and widely appealing product in this spatial computing mix because they tone down the tech. It’s all about subtle audio cues about your surroundings, driven by multimodal AI that blends visual inputs and audible outputs.
That brings us back to visual search. Users can scan the world around them to contextualize and identify things. This use case has local implications, such as finding out more about a new restaurant you walk past. Access its menu, hours of operation, make a reservation, all without pulling out your phone.
Ambient & Elegant
Sticking with the restaurant use case, though Ray Ban Meta Smartglasses’ (RBMS) audible outputs are ambient and elegant, could they be more dimensional and meaningful if aided by visuals? We’re talking basic and “flat” visuals like notifications and text that join the audio output that the device already offers.
The thinking here is that some things are better seen than heard, such as viewing a restaurant menu. It doesn’t work as well if it’s recited to you. But it would have to be a very simple graphical display to maintain one key principle at the heart of RBMS’ success formula: style and wearability.
And that brings us back to this week’s Bloomberg revelation. If Meta can capture the ethos and style points of RBMS while elegantly integrating some of Orion’s visuals, it could open up new levels of appeal and utility. And many of those will be local in nature – everything from restaurants to fashion retail.
Several flags likely fly up as you read this – namely Google Glass. But what separates RBMS is that it’s market-validated. It’s actually popular. And cultural sensitivities to camera glasses have receded in the age of persistent phone cameras. In the end, the market will decide… and that’s what we’ll be watching.
