In a time of rising prices, Meta has apparently found a way to dramatically cut the cost of its upcoming smart glasses.
According to Bloomberg, Meta plans to release its smart glasses, reportedly called Celeste, at $800 rather than the $1000-plus price previously expected.
They remain far more expensive than the current, and popular, Ray-Ben Meta Wayfarers, which start at $299. But this new pair represents a major leap in the core technology used in Meta’s smart glasses.
Meta smart glasses of the future
The Meta Celeste is a pair with an integrated display, for a more augmented reality style experience that will be able to lock into Meta AI software more effectively. This, for example, could be used to display the live language translation of someone stood speaking right in front of you.
It’s a potentially exciting step forwards for the category, although it is also going to come with increased bulk. Low-bulk design is one of the key elements that helped make the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer glasses such a success, that they can be worn as normal sunglasses without looking out of place.
An earlier report suggested the glasses will weigh around 70g, where today’s pairs made in association with Ray-Ban weigh between 48g and 51g. It may well be physical dimensions, in millimeters rather than grammes, that determine how well they are received by the audience of current and prospective Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer users.
Meta has actually publicly announced a comparable pair of smart glasses with display last year, called Orion, which it called the “most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made.” Where that pair puts a translucent display in front of much of the wearer’s central vision, the Celeste pair is expected to place the head-up display view in the corner of your vision.
It’s an info pane, rather than a true overlay of the real world.
Meta’s announcement of Orion did provide a view as to where Meta thinks this technology is going, though. For example, one demo shows computer vision used to recognise real-world foods and consider several of them to suggest recipes that could be produced using them.
The new glasses are also expected to use a wrist or arm band that can detect various gestures made with the hand and fingers, similar to that of the Meta Orion prototype.
What is not yet clear is whether the proposed $800 selling price of the kit would include that controller or not. Gurman does not the price is likely to be significantly higher in reality for many too, after considering prescription lenses and other style-based upsells.
The pair is to get an official launch just next month, as part of Meta Connect streamed conference series, which runs on September 18 and 19, ahead of a release later in the year. Recent leaks suggest Meta is eyeing up an October release.