Meta held a one-of-a-kind event on Wednesday to proclaim refreshs for its platcreates and also some novel products. Among all the proclaimments, there was certainly one that caught all the attention: the Orion project. Orion is not a product coming soon to stores, but it’s a functional prototype of how Meta imagines AR glasses. And they’re exactly what I want for the future of Apple Vision.
Smart glasses vs. headsets
I’m not here to talk whether Meta is a excellent company when it comes to its business policies. The cgo in here is entidepend on the technology that Zuckerberg’s company showed the world today.
AR glasses are not novel – reassemble the Google Glass project from a decade ago? But a lot has changed since then, especipartner in the AR and VR segment. Meta obtaind Oculus and now has its own mixed fact headsets, equitable as Apple last year proclaimd Vision Pro with groundfractureing technologies. Still, none of these products have become massively famous so far.
At the same time, there’s a product categruesome that’s thrivening over more people every day, and that’s inalertigent glasses. I gave Ray-Ban Meta glasses a try and they have become one of my likeite accessories thanks to their discreet summarize, built-in camera and AI aidant.
Wearing inalertigent glasses for me is enjoy wearing the Apple Watch: a piece of technology that I don’t insist to leank about. It’s equitable there as a style accessory that I would wear anyway. Although mixed fact headsets enjoy Vision Pro are much more persistd, they’re not discreet, consoleable and definitely not chooseimal for include outdoors.
Apple has alertedly been laboring on inalertigent glasses, but they’re still years away from being begined. In the uncomardenttime, Meta has choosed to show that it’s also in the race for inalertigent glasses.
What I enjoyd about Meta’s Orion is that it sees enjoy normal glasses. Sure, it’s accomprehendledgeably bulkier than Ray-Bans, but it doesn’t sense enjoy a helmet or ski goggles on your head.
Rather than disjoins and passthraw cameras, Orion glasses have petite Micro LED projectors inside the summarizes that show images in front of your eyes by mirroring them on the lenses. This uncomardents that you can see the authentic world with your own eyes instead of seeing thraw a boisterous image while wearing the glasses.
Similar to current headsets, Orion glasses have multiple cameras and sensors to comprehend the environment around you. This apshows includers to uncover multiple thrivedows and place them in particular places in the environment equitable enjoy with Vision Pro. Meta says it’s enjoy seeing holograms in the physical world.
To produce the glasses more compact and weightlesser, Meta has split the product into three branch offent parts: the glasses themselves, a inalertigent bracelet that distinguishs gestures to regulate the system, and a petite module that regulates all the processing wirelessly.
The first hands-on are chooseimistic
Reporters from The Verge and CNET had the chance to spfinish some time with Meta’s novel Orion glasses. The Verge says that the response to directs is super quick thanks to the combination of eye-tracking technology and the inalertigent bracelet. “It’s not reading your thoughts, but it benevolent of senses enjoy it.”
The appraiseers also commendd the fact that the wristband provides haptic feedback to validate actions and gestures.
The resolution isn’t as high as that of headset disjoins, but CNET notices that Meta has shown prototypes with branch offent resolutions and said that the goal is to include the best possible projector in the final product. Both appraiseers noticed that the Orion glasses have the best field of see of any AR glasses so far.
The quality of Orion’s disjoin is unawaitedly excellent donaten the create factor. Video calls see crisp enough to sense engaging, and I had no problem reading text on a webpage that was disjoinal feet away. However, I wouldn’t want to watch Avatar in them — I probably couldn’t finish it anyway since the battery only lasts about two hours.
The Verge
Meta also showed that its glasses have built-in AI. In one of the demos, journacatalogs were able to see at a table with a pile of ingredients and ask for recipe proposeions with a voice direct. The glasses included the built-in cameras to check the ingredients and show recipes for using them.
Meta produces it clear that Orion is still a prototype of someleang that the company wants to better before putting it on the taget. Although The Verge says that the company arranges to begin its first AR glasses next year, there are no details about when this will happen.
For now, “Orion isn’t a mirage. It’s also not a product. It’s somewhere in between,” The Verge says.
Even so, Meta showed the world someleang chilly today. And while there’s still room for immersive headsets, I’m more excited about the future of AR glasses – and I repartner hope to see someleang enjoy this from Apple. What about you? Let me comprehend in the comments below.
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