Meta is making a bold push into AI-powered wearables with significant upgrades to its Ray-Ban smart glasses and the unveiling of its ambitious Orion holographic AR prototype. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced these developments at Meta’s Connect 2024 event, positioning the company as a serious contender in the AI hardware race against tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Google.
The second-generation Ray-Ban smart glasses have exceeded expectations, with approximately 700,000 pairs shipped since October 2023, according to International Data Corporation. This marks a dramatic improvement from the disappointing first generation in 2021, which sold only 300,000 pairs with less than 10% still in use by last summer. Zuckerberg attributed this success partly to AI integration, noting that demand has outpaced production capacity.
The AI features are comprehensive and practical: the glasses now offer real-time translation for conversations in Spanish, English, French, and Italian. They can help users remember where they parked, suggest outfit combinations from closet contents, or provide smoothie recipes based on available fruits. The glasses incorporate a camera, speaker, and are “packed with AI” that makes everyday tasks more seamless without requiring hands-free gestures.
Meta also revealed its Orion prototype glasses, which cost approximately $10,000 per pair to manufacture. These holographic AR glasses represent Meta’s vision for the future, enabling more lifelike video calls, TV watching, and text message reading while maintaining awareness of the surrounding environment. However, Zuckerberg acknowledged these won’t reach consumers soon, as they need to become more stylish and affordable.
The wearables market remains challenging. The VR and AR headset sector declined 54% from early 2022 to 2023, with VR headset shipments falling another 4% between 2023 and 2024. Even Apple’s Vision Pro, despite its splashy release, is expected to sell fewer than 500,000 units this year at its $3,500 price point—a stark contrast to the 500,000 iPhones sold globally daily.
Meta’s strategy focuses on making AI accessible through fashionable, socially acceptable hardware. By partnering with Ray-Ban, a brand associated with celebrities like Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga, Meta aims to overcome the “cringe factor” that plagued Google Glass a decade ago. The company believes glasses represent “a very natural computing platform” that people will actually want to wear.
Key Quotes
These glasses exist. They are awesome. They are a glimpse of a future that I think is going to be pretty exciting.
Mark Zuckerberg said this about the Orion prototype glasses at Meta’s Connect 2024 event, attempting to generate excitement for Meta’s vision of AR computing and convince the world that Meta can build the future beyond smartphones.
Glasses are a very natural computing platform, and people want to have something on their face that they’re proud of and that looks good.
Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of design and social acceptability in overcoming the stigma that has plagued previous smart glasses attempts like Google Glass, highlighting why Meta partnered with the fashionable Ray-Ban brand.
If they manage to create an AI solution that actually works very well, then having glasses in that situation makes a lot of sense. You can see the road to mass adoption more clearly with glasses than with VR headsets.
George Jijiashvili, senior principal analyst at Omdia, explained why AI-powered glasses have better mass-market potential than VR headsets, provided the AI functionality delivers genuine value by combining video capture, sound, and location context.
VR headsets are not going to be mass market, ever, in this current form.
Jijiashvili’s assessment of the VR market highlights the challenges facing devices like Apple’s Vision Pro and why Meta is betting on lighter, more socially acceptable smart glasses as the path to mainstream wearable computing.
Our Take
Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses represent a pragmatic approach to wearable AI that prioritizes utility and social acceptance over technological spectacle. Unlike the Vision Pro’s $3,500 price tag and ski-goggle aesthetic, Meta is betting that incremental AI features in fashionable frames will normalize the concept of face-worn computers before introducing more advanced AR capabilities.
The real innovation isn’t the hardware—it’s the contextual AI integration that makes these glasses useful for everyday tasks. Real-time translation, visual recognition, and location-aware assistance demonstrate AI’s potential when freed from smartphone screens. However, Meta faces significant challenges: privacy concerns around always-on cameras, battery life limitations, and the need to prove these AI features are essential rather than novelties.
The $10,000 cost of Orion prototypes reveals how far Meta must go before holographic AR becomes commercially viable. Yet by establishing the Ray-Ban glasses as a stepping stone, Meta is playing the long game—building consumer comfort with wearable AI today to enable more ambitious AR experiences tomorrow.
Why This Matters
Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses represent a critical battleground in the AI hardware race, demonstrating how artificial intelligence is moving from smartphones and computers into wearable devices that integrate seamlessly with daily life. This shift matters because it could fundamentally change how people interact with AI—making it ambient, contextual, and hands-free rather than screen-dependent.
The success of Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, despite the broader wearables market slump, suggests that practical AI applications combined with fashionable design may finally crack the code that eluded Google Glass and other failed attempts. If Meta can demonstrate that AI-powered glasses provide genuine utility—real-time translation, visual recognition, contextual assistance—it could accelerate mainstream adoption of wearable AI.
For the broader tech industry, this represents Meta’s attempt to establish a hardware platform for its AI capabilities, reducing dependence on Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystems. The stakes are enormous: whoever controls the next computing platform after smartphones will shape how billions of people access and interact with AI. Meta’s $10,000-per-unit Orion prototype shows the company is willing to invest heavily in this vision, even if profitability remains years away.
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Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-new-ray-ban-smart-glasses-apple-vision-pro-2024-9