Meta’s Orion glasses show that consumer AR wearables are almost here

Companies like Meta and Snap aren’t ready to sell their AR wearables to consumers yet—but their latest devices show significant progress.

For about a decade, Meta has been working on an audacious project: AR glasses stylish enough to pass as regular eyewear, and yet so powerful that they could one day replace the smartphone. “When we started, we actually thought that there was less than a 10 percent chance that we could make it happen,” admits Meta AR devices VP Ming Hua.

And yet, at this week’s Meta developer conference, the company showed off Orion: An AR glasses prototype that comes closer to this vision than any other device in its category, leading Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to call them “the most advanced glasses in the world.”