Meta Orion AR Glasses: Take that Apple!

At their annual Meta Connect developer conference overnight Meta (Facebook) revealed a glimpse into the future with their Orion Augmented Reality Glasses, and – they look good!

Just days after Snapchat’s CEO stood on stage wearing utterly ridiculous AR Glasses in development at Snap, Mark Zuckerberg is on Instagram sharing his first look at Orion, though he’s not wearing them, instead it’s a video of him as seen through the Orion AR glasses.

This is huge, on several levels. Firstly, Meta is smart to come out now, potentially years before this product is even ready for consumer sale. It puts a line in the sand that says “we’re working on this”.

Snapchat’s attempt at this was similar, though their product looked ridiculous – the Meta Orion AR glasses are more like an extreme Buddy Holly look, thick as heck glasses frames and arms.

But again, first look – there’s work to be done, but no cable, and an AR experience in glasses that look close to something you’d wear outside – colour me interested.

The Augmented user interface is giving me strong Apple Vision OS Vibes, but let’s leave that aside for now, because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – of course! Who’s imitating who is a debate for another day.

For all the things that Apple Vision Pro offers, they are almost all offset by the chunky headset you have to wear.

You HAVE to imagine Apple has something like this in a lab somewhere, but – they don’t show things before they are done. So we’ll not really ever know

No matter what, when you consider the success of the Ray Ban Meta smart glasses as a simple pair of sunnies with smarts, you have to say Meta are kicking goals in this space.

I think the Meta Orion AI glasses are a genuine glimpse into the future, and I’m here for it.