- Meta has launched new smart glasses at $299.
- The wearables were created in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban.
- The glasses feature up to 8 hours of batte
Meta has unveiled new smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban. Called Meta Glasses, the wearables will be without Ray-Ban or Oakley's branding.
Priced at $299, the smart glasses are at least $80 cheaper than the tech giant's entry-level second-generation Meta Ray-Ban wearables.
The smart glasses are available in three different styles and seven colours, as per The Verge. One style is a collaboration between Meta and reality TV star Kylie Jenner, a spokesperson told the outlet.
Meta's new product highlights Mark Zuckerberg's push into wearables, as per CNBC. The tech giant is aggressively marketing its smart glasses as the competition for augmented reality devices heats up.
While the smart glasses sector is small, Meta and EssilorLuxottica account for over 80% of the market share, with millions of units sold since their first collaboration in 2021.
Meta executives told CNBC that the lightweight smart glasses are a move towards a more advanced device with screens in the lenses that feature computing capabilities. Last year, Meta announced the Ray-Ban Display glasses with a built-in display.
Mark Zuckerberg has been more successful in the smart glasses segment compared to virtual reality headsets, which were crucial to Meta changing its name from Facebook in 2021. VR has remained to be a niche market. Zuckerberg is now focused on having a hardware platform for the AI era.
Meta Glasses Features
The devices feature a dedicated action button to invoke Meta AI or customise it for launching the favourite feature of users. The smart glasses include speakers, a multi-mic array and photo and video taking capabilities. The Meta smart glasses have up to 8 hours of battery.
Meta is not the only company that is focusing on smart glasses. Last month, Google announced that it was building new computerized eyewear in collaboration with Warby Parker. Snap announced its own smart glasses, Specs, last week.
As for Meta's smart glasses, privacy concerns remain a big drawback. Earlier this month, Wired reported that Meta had quietly built facial recognition technology for its smart glasses into an app downloaded to the phones of several users.
Code added to Meta's AI app over multiple updates highlighted that the feature, internally called “NameTag,” could identify people captured by the camera of the smart glasses and, when activated, alert the user when the software recognised someone.
