Meta Connect, the company’s annual event dedicated to all things AR, VR, AI and the metaverse is just days away. And once again, it seems like it will be a big year for smart glasses and AI.
This year, the event will take a slightly different format than in the past. Mark Zuckerberg is to kick things off with an evening keynote at 5PM PT on Wednesday, September 17. A developer keynote with other executives will take place the next morning on September 18, beginning at 10AM, with more talks and developer sessions to follow.
It’s not clear why Meta changed things up this year, but it is shaping up to be a particularly eventful year for Connect. We’re expecting two new models of smart glasses, including Meta’s first to have a display, as well as new Meta AI and metaverse updates. As usual, Engadget will be reporting live from Zuckerberg’s keynote at Meta HQ, but until then, here’s a closer look at what’s coming and what to keep an eye on.
New and updated smart glasses
The biggest news of the day will be Meta’s next-generation of smart glasses. The frames, often referred to by their reported internal name “,” will be the first consumer-ready glasses from Meta that have a display. We already know quite a bit about these thanks to more than a year of leaks.
While the frames are expected to have a small display on one side, they won’t offer the kind of immersive augmented reality experience we’ve seen on Meta’s . Instead the display will allow you to view things like notifications and photo previews. The glasses will also come with a dedicated wristband, similar to what the company showed off with Orion, that allows the wearer to control specific features through hand gestures.
The EMG wristband that’s part of the Orion prototype.
(Karissa Bell for Engadget)
The glasses, which may officially be called “Celeste,” are expected to go on sale later this year, will likely cost around $800. They could be sold with Prada branding, which would be in line with Meta’s longtime EssilorLuxottica partnership, CNBC. Given the much higher price tag — most of Meta’s Ray-Ban-branded glasses cost around $300 — it seems Meta is positioning this as a higher-end product that will have a more limited appeal. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has Hypernova will have a “negligible” share of the overall smart glasses market.
It also sounds like we could see a new version of Meta’s smart glasses without a display with an updated version of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. There could be two versions…