• by Colin Kirkland , December 24, 2024

In a move to fully embrace the concept of mixed reality, Meta has plans to bring a visual display to its Ray-Ban smart glasses.

According to a report by the Financial Times, the feature could be appearing as soon as next year, potentially altering the relationship consumers have with their smartphones.

Per the report, Meta is planning to add a screen inside the sunglasses that would “show notifications or responses from Meta's virtual assistant,” making the company's augmented-reality prototype Orion, a consumer product.

The social media giant first showcased the AR prototype in September and has “accelerated Orion's development following the enthusiastic response of early testers.”

“Orion's compact design, lightweight frame and innovative displays, which overlay 3D content onto the real world, have been hailed as breakthroughs after years of failed AR headsets, including Google-backed Magic Leap and Microsoft's Hololens,” according to the Financial Times.

The price and release date of Meta's future AR Ray-Ban glasses are still unknown, but the product could be notable for the tech company's Reality Labs division, which has struggled to stoke mass adoption around its metaverse products while continuing to spend billions each quarter.

Unlike its Quest VR headsets, Meta's Ray-Ban glasses have been popular with consumers, becoming the top-selling glasses brand in 60% of all Ray-Ban stores across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in Q4, according to Ray-Ban owner EssilorLuxottica.

Earlier this month, Meta also introduced several new AI-powered features to the sunglasses, including the ability to translate between languages in real-time, and label music playing in the vicinity via a Shazam integration.

Consumers in the U.S. and Canada can also use “live AI” on their glasses, allowing them to have continuous conversations with Meta AI, the company's Llama-powered AI assistant.

Meta's Ray-Ban products are in direct competition with Apple, which has been teasing a similar product for the past few years. In 2019, Apple mentioned that AR glasses would eventually overtake the smartphone.