Hands on with Meta's Orion glasses: a glimpse of the future
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Axios' Ina Fried trying out Meta's Orion augmented reality glasses. Photo: Meta
Meta's new Orion glasses may still be a prototype that costs thousands of dollars to produce, but when you put them on they feel like the future.
Driving the news: These are glasses, not goggles, that can display information and even videos overlaid on the real world — like Apple's Vision Pro in many ways, but lighter and with less of a barrier between you and reality.
How it works: Orion — which Meta unveiled last week but is probably years off from consumer availability — is an augmented reality device that consists of chunky black spectacles.
- The glasses connect wirelessly to a pencil case-sized computer (it will likely go in a user's pocket) and a mesh bracelet that can read the electrical signals that pass through a user's wrist.
Zoom in: I got a chance to try out Orion at Meta's offices last week and talk with some of the team members who created the glasses prototypes.
The feeling reminded me of using Apple's Vision Pro for the first time. It's clear that the device is still super early in its development, but there's enough right that you can tell that Meta is on to something.
- The glasses themselves are bulky but feel surprisingly light and comfortable — especially when you learn that every millimeter of the frame has some sort of electronics crammed in.
- You select objects to interact with simply by looking at them.
- The eye-tracking is so fast that Meta employees told me they have to measure where your eyes have been looking, because the user may have already moved on to another task.
- To click on an object, you pinch your index finger and thumb together, and the motion is detected by the wrist-worn strap. Meta has shown previous demos of the technology that aim to detect subtler gestures, but the Orion implementation still felt intuitive.
- Setting up the device was simple, and I was able to try out a range of experiences, from video chat to browsing an Instagram feed to playing a 3D version of Pong.
Between the lines: Orion can also serve as the front end for AI systems.
- Meta showed an example in which a user could look at a table of ingredients and Orion provided a recipe — in this case, smoothie recommendations.
- The company sees a broad potential to use Orion for AI experiences that take in what a person sees and hears.
My thought bubble: As with Apple's Vision Pro, Meta has nailed the user interface, making it intuitive to use the glasses with just one's gaze and some finger gestures.
- That's in sharp contrast to a recent demo of Snap's latest Spectacles, which left me wondering when the company would have something that felt anywhere near ready for mainstream use.
Yes, but: It still feels weird to be doing computing tasks while looking directly at the real world — even stranger than doing so on a VR headset with pass-through video, like Apple's Vision Pro.
- On the flip side, the glasses approach makes the wearer appear much more normal to people nearby.
The big picture: Meta was late to the mobile revolution and has committed to not missing the next hardware trend — even if it means investing too much, too early.
What's next: Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses line, which is now available for around $300, does a lot less than Orion promises — it takes pictures, plays audio and (in the newest version) provides access to an AI assistant.
- Meta will keep adding more features to the Ray-Ban line while still making sure they feel like regular glasses and don't break the bank.
- Today, the specs have no display, but a small display could be a future add-on.
- At the same time, Meta is trying to figure out what it can do to bring down the cost of Orion — or an Orion-like device — with an eye toward making it commercially available once that is practical.
- Some pieces of the technology, like the wristband, could find their way into other Meta products as well.
