Social networking company Facebook has reportedly been working on it’s very own augmented reality glasses for the past couple of years out of its Facebook Reality Labs in Redmond, Washington.
According to a report by CNBC, Facebook is hoping for a partnership with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica as the former has been faced struggles with the development of the project.
The partnership is hoped to get the project completed and ready for consumers between 2023 and 2025 according to people familiar with the matter.
The smart glasses are said to be internally code-named Orion and are designed to replace smartphones, allowing users to take calls, show information to users in a small display and live-stream their vantage point to their social media friends and followers.
Apart from the glasses itself, Facebook is reportedly developing an artificial intelligence voice assistant as well which will serve as a user input for Orion. Facebook has also reportedly experimented with a ring device called Agios that would allow users to input information via motion sensor.
According to a person who worked on the device, Facebook, despite having hundreds of employees at its Redmond offices working on technology for the AR glasses, has struggled to reduce the size of the device into a form factor that consumers will find appealing.
Amid not having guarantee on the completion and shipment of the glasses, a person familiar with the project said that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a strong interest in the project, and asked hardware chief Andrew Bosworth to prioritize them.
(Photo source: businessinsider.com/ gizmodo.com)
