Meta's first full AR glasses will be a 'time machine', says CTO
Meta's CTO confirms that with its first AR glasses, Meta is selling a vision of augmented reality, not a product.
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg talked openly about the prototype AR glasses that will likely be shown for the first time at Meta Connect 2024 in September. He said that early testers were "giddy" after trying out the prototype.
In his AMA on Instagram, CTO Andrew Bosworth gave his version of this story and describes how he sees the prototype:
"Yeah, I talked about this before, and I agree with Mark, it has been really gratifying to put these on people outside of the team and watch the response. It's been really, really positive.
These are full AR glasses, great clarity, wide field of view. They're internal only. They're prototypes. And they're really a time machine into the future. And putting them on for the first time is one of the coolest things I've gotten to do in my career. They are spectacular. And years and years and years of effort in the making for us, and huge amounts of investment.
But now we have a developer platform, where we can start to build software and experiences and intuition for different input modalities for full augmented reality, which is the future that we're building towards."
Meta is setting high expectations
"Time Machine" is a term Meta often uses to refer to research prototypes designed to provide a glimpse into the future of a technology and not intended for commercialization.
Over the past few years, Meta has unveiled various VR time machines that will never come to market in this exact form, and are only meant to demonstrate the effect that certain futuristic VR features (varifocal lenses, retinal resolution, HDR) could have.
Meta's first true AR glasses, codenamed Orion, will also be a time machine. They are said to be so expensive to manufacture that Meta will only produce 1,000 units for internal use and developers, according to a report by the Information. However, it looks like Meta is using Orion to lay the software groundwork for a technically stripped-down commercial version of the AR glasses, codenamed Artemis, which is reportedly set to launch in 2027.
Meta is setting high (and hopefully realistic) expectations for the device. Bosworth called it "the most advanced thing in consumer electronics that we as a species have ever produced" and the Head of AR Glasses Hardware Caitlin Kalinowski said the prototype would have a similar wow factor as the Oculus Rift prototype at the time.
With Orion, Meta wants to reignite the hype around AR glasses and convince investors that the billions invested in research and development have paid off. The stakes are high for Meta this fall.
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