What are Meta Pro Glasses?

Step into the future of Facebook's Metaverse.

Apr 18

Meta too is building AR shades for the future. All good things come to those who wait, in VR and AR, like a really long time.

Facebook is Still Dreaming of an iPhone Moment

Mark Zuckerberg is still waiting for Facebook’s iPhone moment, could a pair of AR glasses be so revolutionary consumers and human kind? It’s a Magic leap into the Metaverse, they hope.

Meta is willing to burns $Billions on R&D and consumer opt in to help get one foot into the door of what this “Metaverse” might become. Despite spending billions, Meta has relatively realistically low sales expectations (tens of thousands) for first glasses that are expected in 2024 with lighter more advanced versions due in 2026 and 2028. The first version will be pricier than company’s $299 Quest #VR headset, which has little sales, but far below material costs of many thousands of dollars.

Oh baby!

So what then is then are Meta Pro Glasses?

Join the Metaverse Today!

The most powerful wearable computer available, featuring a high definition 3D display and a holographic technology which utilizes one's gestures and responds accordingly. It also features wifi, Camera, and 500+ Apps with various other unique features.
Your real phone with you everywhere, weighing nothing. Change your screen size to suit you on the fly, and have access to all your apps.
Mirror your real phone as your real devices with you, everywhere you are. All your applications travel with you all of the time. Adjust your screen size and add extra display areas.
Your laptop is now a hologram and you can place it anywhere in the world around you. Work with unlimited extra screens no matter where you are.
It is now available for Pre-Order and costs $3000, but is worth it!

I’m hope you ready to see something like a Disney product video from Facebook:

Holographs are no longer limited to the pages of Science Fiction.

Oh yeah! Zuck, just show me the shades buddy!

It feels like Facebook is trying to copy and clone Snap again, or maybe even Apple. Zuckerberg calls AR goggles a “holy grail” device that will “redefine our relationship with technology,” akin to the introduction of smartphones. Is this the Metaverse or are we only dreaming?

Meta reportedly plans to release its first AR glasses in 2024

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly pushing for "an iPhone moment."
According to anonymous sources, the company aims to launch its first AR glasses, part of its Project Nazare initiative, in 2024. You would see a "lighter, more advanced" model in 2026, and a third iteration in 2028.
Zuckerberg has ambitious goals for when his high-tech glasses will be a reality. Employees are racing to deliver the first generation by 2024. Personally I think Apple’s AR glasses may be the early winner in this. It’s unreasonable to expect Facebook can do hardware at this scale, any time soon.

It’s very much a clone of what Magic Leap, by the way, has already done. The initial model would be independent of your phone, but you would need a "phone-shaped device" to handle the computing and rely on a CTRL-Labs-derived electrical pulse-based wristband for control.

I don’t know why Facebook tries to copy and clone everyone, it makes little business sense. They have already failed to monetize the majority of their 2 Billion consumer on apps like WhatsApp and Instagram, who are trapped in a time loop of innovation.

What’s the point of having to work without a smart phone but with other bulky hardware instead?

The AR glasses would be part of the company's rush into the metaverse, the supposed next iteration of the internet that promises a more interactive environment. They reportedly will enable people to interact with holograms of other people and will work without relying on a smartphone to provide computing power.

A Facebook Socially Acceptable Look

This first model is supposedly based on Android and could offer "full" AR with 3D visuals, eye tracking, an outward-facing camera, stereo audio, a relatively wide field of view and a "socially acceptable" look.

Sounds impressive! Hololens 2, Magic Leap 2, Snap cloning much? Meta's AR glasses would go up against Snap's, along with future models from Microsoft and Qualcomm, which at CES 2022 announced a partnership to make new chips for AR glasses that will follow the HoloLens 2 headset. HoloLens 2 is having some trouble internally according to rumors in 2022.

The centerpiece feature would be communication with other people's "holograms," much like Meta portrayed in a video that accompanied its big rebranding last fall. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg apparently believes this will provide a more engrossing experience than simple video calling. Facebook has not had hardware that sold very well yet, though its Horizon Worlds ecosystem for Creators does look promising.

Project Nazare and Mdoest Sales Expectations

Zuck really wants us to be patient with the Metaverse. We’ve only been waiting for VR experiences worth having for the past 15 years. Sales expectations are apparently modest for the first Project Nazare glasses.

It seems Meta might only sell the eyewear in the "low tens of thousands" to enthusiasts and developers. Zuckerberg, however, apparently sees them as crucial. A former staffer told The Verge that Zuckerberg wants the AR glasses to represent an "iPhone moment" for Meta — that is, a launch that shakes up the industry and redefines the company. Meanwhile The AR Glasses Pro will have to compete against, well, Apple. Apple the same company that wrecked in advertising/privacy dilemma for Facebook’s entire future.

Facebook Rejects the App Duopoly

Meta’s CEO also sees the AR glasses, dubbed Project Nazare, as a way to get out from under the thumb of Apple and Google, which together dictate the terms that apps like Facebook have to abide by on mobile phones. The first version of Nazare is designed to work independently from a mobile phone with the assistance of a wireless, phone-shaped device that offloads parts of the computing required for the glasses to operate.

Show me the Light, your Light

It seems a marquee feature will be the ability to communicate and interact with holograms of other people through the glasses, which Zuckerberg believes will, over time, provide people with a more immersive, compelling experience than the video calling that exists today.

Don’t worry bro, I won’t be touching your hologram anytime soon.

The details, which together give the first comprehensive look at Meta’s AR hardware ambitions, were shared with The Verge by people familiar with the roadmap who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment for this story.

A Meta Exodus of Talent in the Great Reshuffle

Let’s be honest though, Meta has experienced significant talent exodus and its stock has plummeted. Confidence is low, morale is bad. Whether or not they fulfill that ambition is another matter. Meta has faced numerous setbacks, including scrapped plans for a custom (if Google Fuschia-based) OS and staff shuffles (Engadget).

Apple made changes in iOS 14.5 that are creating issues for advertisers who rely on Facebook to sustain their businesses. Facebook has also been beaten to the GenZ generation by a Chinese company called ByteDance who built TikTok among many other consumer apps with better A.I. and recommendation systems.

How Much will the Meta Pro Glasses Cost?

A price point hasn’t been decided, but the device will certainly be pricier than the company’s $299 Quest VR headset, given that the AR glasses bill of materials is multiple thousands of dollars. The cost will test Zuckerberg’s willingness to subsidize the price of the hardware to encourage adoption — a competitive strategy intended in part to undercut the margins enjoyed by other players like Apple.

I think it’s reasonable to assume they would be in the $400 to $600 area. Facebook needs an “iPhone Moment” to save the company of Meta.

The prototype hardware also has its limitations. While it's using cutting-edge microLED projectors and waveguide technology, it's about four times heavier than conventional glasses and musters just four hours of battery life. That’s really bad and a pretty low performance baseline.

Four times heavier than glasses
Just 4 hours of batter life

The Future of AR Glasses

So what’s going on? In addition to Nazare, a separate, previously unreported pair of cheaper smart glasses codenamed Hypernova are also planned for 2024. Nazare is designed to operate independently of a smartphone, but Hypernova will pair with a nearby phone to show incoming messages and other notifications through a smaller, heads-up display, similar to the North smart glasses Google acquired two years ago. You will remember in hardware most recently the Facebook Portal device did not fare very well.

Portal lets you open Messenger rooms as well, for large-scale calls of up to 50 people. Portal comes with its own built-in voice assistant, in addition to Alexa, which means you can listen to music, set reminders, watch the news, check the weather, and control smart home devices with the sound of your voice. It sort of replicated devices of a devices that Google now calls Google Nest Hub (which is a mouthful).

The untold story of the failure of Facebook’s Building 8 is what really has me hesitant about Meta’s future in hardware. As I’ve written many times about the story. Facebook could have made better tech, but instead and ultimately Building 8 became Portal, a video-chat product that has failed to gain market traction, maybe 1.3 million in sales since 2019.

As companies like Snap and Magic Leap have shown, more recently, AR glasses is a tough thing to crack. Realistically Apple and even Google have a better chance of success. Facebook though dares to fail and it’s been failing a lot recently. Meta doesn’t have a choice, with so little diversification besides advertising revenue, it’s really stuck as a company in a very uncomfortable position as TikTok, Amazon and others improve in advertising.

Still, it's not hard to see why Meta and Zuckerberg might pour so much energy into AR glasses. Meta has an increasingly negative reputation due to privacy issues, content controversies and regulatory pressure. The Metaverse push is absurd and a little bit of an act of desperation of a founder with too much control over his flailing company. You can win consumers over over decades, but if you don’t innovate your company can melt pretty quickly.

I’m not so keen to arrive at meeting in a hologram suit. But like a sci-fi cliché, I might just have to one day.

Just as the Metaverse forces us to become Creators in a Creator Economy, maybe holograms, zoom calls and fighting RTO is just the new normal.

Alex Heath at The Verge reported a detailed story about how Zuckerberg's augmented reality ambitions stack up with actual reality.

Despite Zuckerberg’s assertions that the metaverse will be an open haven for creators and participants, the company recently raised hackles when details emerged that it would take almost half the revenue made from sales made within its Horizon Worlds platform. The question is whether Apple, Google or someone else can make a better “Creator Economy” at scale in the new media of the next internet? I have no doubts that Snap can, because I can trust their product innovation. The same goes for ByteDance. The company history proves to me what they can pull-off.

Together with Nazare, Hypernova, and future versions of the Ray-Ban camera-equipped glasses it recently introduced, Meta hopes to be selling tens of millions of smart glasses towards the end of this decade, its VP of AR, Alex Himel, has told employees. Meta always has lofty expectations, but so much power concentrated in one person, it’s also not something you want to believe in. It’s a shiny and dystopian vision of what Silicon Valley ends up becoming.

The Meta 2 Development Kit trailor video feels forced. Everything about Facebook has always felt super contrived and commercial. That’s a problem for its brand and its lack of traction anymore with the only consumer that really matters at the end of the day, that of young people.

We won’t know by 2024 if the Metaverse is real or just a pathetic fantasy of a Tycoon. We will still be waiting for some semblance of consumer AR and VR to arrive in a mainstream way. The sad part is Meta seems to have literally cloned Magic Leap 2. It’s not even very original.

How do you feel about Meta Pro Glasses?

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