Meta aims to win smart glasses race at its Meta Connect conference

Meta (META) is spending tens of billions of dollars building out its AI infrastructure and software. The company is expected to showcase at least some fruits of that labor during its Meta Connect conference at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Wednesday.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg will kick things off with a keynote at 8 p.m. ET. He’s expected to reveal a number of new smart glasses, including the company’s anticipated Hypernova glasses, which feature a built-in display that can provide users with walking directions, translate text, and more.

Meta is already a leader in the smart glasses space thanks to its Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses. While those include built-in cameras, microphones, and speakers and provide AI capabilities, they don’t include a display.

During Meta Connect 2024, the company unveiled a prototype of its Project Orion smart glasses that include a built-in display and augmented reality functionality that projects virtual items onto the real world.

The Hypernova glasses won’t take things that far. They’ll have a screen, but according to a video clip posted to Meta’s YouTube page and spotted by UploadVR before it was mysteriously removed, the glasses, which could be called Meta Ray-Ban Display, will provide things like turn-by-turn walking directions, live text translation, and more.

A wrist strap allows you to input text by writing things out on a flat surface and translating your movements into words and phrases, according to the video.

But don’t expect the Hypernova glasses to come cheap.

“To get some traction among consumers, I’d expect the ‘Hypernova’ glasses to … sell between $800 and $1,000,” Forrester vice president and principal analyst Thomas Husson explained.

“At such a price point, they aren’t likely to be volume sellers and will primarily focus [on] early adopters who can afford them,” he added. “We’re still far away from the … full-fledged ‘computer’ described in the Meta Orion project, but no doubt the heads-up display (HUD) glasses partially controlled by a wristband will demonstrate innovation capabilities.”

TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted on X that he expects Meta’s glasses to enter mass production in the third quarter and for the company to ship between 150,000 and 200,000 units over the first two years.

In addition to the Hypernova glasses, Meta is expected to show off a new style of its Oakley-branded smart glasses using the line’s Sphaera styling. Unlike the company’s Oakley Meta HSTN glasses, which have cameras on the left and right arms, the cameras will be moved to the center of the glasses, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.