Over the past few years, XR devices have exploded in popularity, and while at it, the costs have also gone up dramatically as the underlying tech keeps pushing new boundaries. For example, Apple’s Vision Pro costs $3,500, while the Meta Quest Pro hit the shelves at $1,500. Smart glasses, especially those with a built-in display unit, are also slowly climbing up the price ladder.
It seems Meta will buck that trend, or at least beat initial estimates for its next-gen smart glasses that are set to arrive later this year. “Meta recently figured out a way to slash the price for consumers down to about $800, I’m told. The move stems in part from the company accepting lower margins to boost demand — a common tactic for new products,” says a report by Bloomberg.
How do Meta’s smart glasses work?
Currently in development under the codename “Hypernova,” Meta had initially planned to hawk the smart glasses at roughly $1,000, while some estimates put the price at $1,400. With the purported $800 asking price, it seems Meta is essentially matching the iPhone 16’s sticker value in the market, and possibly, the upcoming iPhone 17, as well.
It’s pretty obvious that Meta will push these glasses as the next-gen personal computing device, one that is an alternative to smartphones, especially the ubiquitous iPhones in its home market. For comparison, display-equipped smart glasses made by the likes of Xreal and Viture usually fall in the $400-600 bracket, and so do next-gen AI glasses with optical projectors, such as the Even G1.
Meta is essentially pulling off the same formula as Google Glass. Instead of a dual-display system that you will find on smart glasses sold by RayNeo, Viture, and Xreal, Meta’s “Hypernova” smart glasses will only feature a monocular display fitted in the lower portion of the right lens.
“Information will only be displayed in front of the wearer’s right eye and will appear most clearly when they are looking downward,” says a Bloomberg report. Powered by Qualcomm silicon, the upcoming Meta smart glasses will feature apps for capturing photos, viewing media, launching maps, and checking notifications.
How can they stand out?
For more intuitive controls, Meta will reportedly offer a neural wristband that will allow users to control the glasses using wrist gestures and hand movements. Smartwatches such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 have already implemented a gesture-based system for navigating the UI. Notably, the wristband will come bundled in the retail package of the “Hypernova” smart glasses.
Interestingly, the glasses will run a customized version of Android, though there might not be a dedicated app store installed on the wearable. Controls will reportedly be handled by a mix of tap and swipe inputs on the side frame. This is going to be a huge driving force for adoption if Meta and Google can somehow figure out a way to at least access and respond to app notifications coming from your connected phone.
But it appears that Meta won’t let Google enjoy that cake, especially with Google already working on its own AR glasses built atop the Android XR platform. “The new version will continue to rely heavily on the Meta View phone app,” reports Bloomberg. The Hypernova smart glasses are expected to arrive in a month from now, and it would be worth waiting to see how they explore AI integration when compared to Google’s Gemini on the wearable platform.
