Meta’s AR glasses are set to take another step forward this year, with the latest reports on the company’s moves providing some more insight into its wearables planning.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Meta’s planning to release a new version of its current smart glasses later this year, aimed specifically at athletes, with the device’s data tracking elements to help improve performance feedback.
Meta’s athletic sunglasses will reportedly be based on Oakley’s “Sphaera” style, and will come with a single camera, in the center of the frame, in order to reduce weight.
Oakley is owned by EssilorLuxottica, the same company that owns Ray Ban, which Meta has already partnered with on its first smart glasses. Meta also reportedly invested in the company last year, solidifying that partnership, which will give Meta direct access to the company’s most popular frames and styles when developing its glasses models.
Which will also, eventually, expand into fully-functional AR glasses, though that’s still a little way off yet.
According to Bloomberg’s report, Meta next stage on this front will be to release its first smart glasses with a heads-up display, which are scheduled to be made available later this year.
The next iteration of its Ray Ban Stories glasses (now called “Ray Ban Meta” according to Meta’s product site) will be able to deliver notifications and display photos, via this small display, that will be visible to the wearer at the lower portion of their view. It’ll also be able to run “simple” apps, though they won’t be fully AR-enabled, providing digital overlays on real-world scenes.
That’s the next stage, which Meta is still planning for 2027, in order to give it more time to establish more sustainable, lower-cost production processes, which will bring down the price of the AR device.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was highly critical of Apple’s approach with its AR-enabled VisionPro device, noting that its $3,499 price tag is simply too high to ensure widespread adoption. Meta, instead, has been committed to driving down the costs of its own wearables to expand market reach, and it’s committed to also launching an AR device that aligns with that same principle.
Though its newer smart glasses will be more expensive.
The model coming later this year is expected to be around double the price of the current Ray Ban Metas, while the company has also predicted that its AR-enabled glasses will eventually cost the same amount as a “high end laptop or smartphone.”
But Zuckerberg also expects that smart glasses will surpass smartphones in popularity and practicality within the next decade, so that cost may be easier to swallow if you’re no longer reliant on a phone. Though that will also require a significant habitual and social shift to facilitate such growth.
Which Meta’s now steadily working towards, while the push to keep the costs down could also be one of the key reasons why Zuckerberg is keen to work with the incoming Trump administration, in order to avoid increased costs for its projects.
Many of Meta’s glasses components are sourced from China, and with Trump pledging tariffs on non-American goods, especially Chinese imports, that could put a dent in Meta’s plans.
Based on these latest insights, Meta’s planning to begin its AR push during Trump’s presidency, which means that it will be hugely dependent on the government to ease its path through regulatory processes, in order to maximize this opportunity.
That alone may be enough to justify Zuckerberg’s kowtowing to Trump, altering the company’s existing content policies to appease the president, among other compromises.
And if Zuck’s right, that very well could pay off significantly in the longer term.
It won’t be popular, and it’s unclear whether the negatives of this approach will outweigh the broader benefits. But for Meta itself, the path forward is clear, and it’s going to need a lot of government cooperation to aid its AI, AR and VR expansion.
