Meta unveils Orion, its first pair of true AR glasses

At the Connect 2024 event, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Orion, its first pair of true AR glasses, previously codenamed Project Nazare. Meta believes these are the most advanced AR glasses ever made, created through several breakthrough technologies developed by Meta's Reality Labs over the past decade.

The Orion glasses pack the most advanced AR display ever assembled, delivering approximately 70 degrees of field of view, the largest in the smallest AR glasses form factor to date. The lenses are made from silicon carbide instead of glass, making them incredibly lightweight. Meta is also using uLED projectors that are super small and extremely power-efficient.

Meta has embedded seven tiny cameras and sensors in Orion's frame rims, made from magnesium for lightweight strength. While Orion supports voice and eye gaze for input control, Meta developed an entirely new way with hand tracking and an EMG wristband. This lets you swipe, click, and scroll while keeping your arm comfortably at your side.

Instead of off-the-shelf processors, Meta developed its own highly specialized custom silicon. This is extremely power-efficient and optimized for its AI, machine perception, and graphics algorithms. Hand and eye tracking, along with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology, typically require hundreds of milliwatts of power and produce a large amount of heat. Meta has reduced power consumption to just a few dozen milliwatts, thereby reducing heat.

To make Orion truly wireless and small, Meta built a wireless compute puck with dual processors, including one custom-designed by Meta. It delivers the compute power required for low-latency graphics rendering, AI, and some additional machine perception. For a smoother experience, the glasses will run all the hand tracking, eye tracking, SLAM, and specialized AR world-locking graphics algorithms, while the puck will run the app logic.

Orion is still a prototype, not yet a consumer product. Starting today, Meta will share its Orion prototype with Meta employees and select external audiences to learn and iterate. Meta plans to build a consumer AR glasses product line and ship it in the near future. Before shipping, Meta needs to improve AR display quality for even sharper visuals, optimize the form factor to make it even smaller, and figure out ways to manufacture them at an affordable cost.

Orion represents a significant step forward in AR technology, showcasing Meta's commitment to building the future of augmented reality. While still in development, Orion's potential is undeniable, and it will be exciting to see how it evolves into a consumer product.

Source: Meta