Photo: Meta
One of Meta's ambitious hardware projects involves a pair of glasses. The company announced five years ago it was working on developing a pair of augmented reality frames. They wanted to bridge the physical and virtual worlds with what it claims is the "most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made." And today, they gave us a glimpse at the Orion prototype.
These chunky glasses resemble their Ray-Ban Metas, adding a digital display to these smart glasses. And they offer the widest field of view for AR glasses at the moment at 70 degrees.
Meta worked on nailing the form factor to create what they call holographic displays. Its custom-designed screen has micro LED projectors inside the frame that beam graphics in front of your eyes via waveguides in the lenses. These lenses are made of silicon carbide instead of plastic and glass. According to Meta, they picked this material for its durability, lightness, and ultrahigh index of refraction. The latter allows the light beamed in from the projectors to fill more of your vision.
They get a truckload of sensors to make it happen, too. There are eye-tracking cameras onboard on the side of the lenses. Outer cameras are tucked along the frame's top edge. Side cameras track hand movements and the space its user is in.
Orion's hardware isn't just limited to the glasses. It also has a "neural wristband" for control and a processor puck that looks like a large power bank to feed apps and graphics to the glasses wirelessly. These glasses don't need a phone or laptop to work. But the puck has to be close to Orion. If you separate them by more than 12 feet, they won't work.
Orion relies on eye tracking, gestures, and voice for control. And gestures are registered through the Fitbit-like wristband. It uses electromyography to interpret neural signals associated with hand gestures. It recognizes pinches and a few other gestures to help operate Orion. Haptic feedback on the band will let you know if the gesture is recognized.
Photo: Meta
As for what these glasses can do, they take on abilities we've seen on other augmented reality and mixed reality headsets.
You can play a 3D game of Pong, answer messages on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp via voice dictation, take video calls, and more. Meta is still working on its 3D avatar codec to offer an experience like Personas on the Apple Vision Pro.
If you've used the Ray-Ban Meta's Meta AI feature, Orion adds a visual overlay to the answers this AI can give you. One of the demos that the media and creators got to check out was Orion being able to identify grocery items on a table and suggest recipes for them.
There aren't complicated AR applications just yet. But the Orion is still deep in development. Meta announced at its Connect event that it is opening access to the Orion prototype to employees and a few select external audiences to help build the technology in these glasses.
They are currently focusing on improving the display quality of these glasses, shrinking the form factor, and building them at scale to make them more affordable.