Facebook has reportedly joined hands with Ray-Ban to develop its augmented reality glasses. Code-named Project Orion, the project is expected to be ready for a commercial release between 2023 and 2025.
According to the report, Facebook has been working on augmented reality glasses for the past couple of years now, however, several roadblocks related to the development of these smart glasses have left the company with no choice but to seek outside help. Hence, the social networking giant has teamed up Ray-Ban’s parent company Luxottica to complete the project.
Notably, the report indicates these glasses are designed to replace smartphones. These smart glasses would look much like any typical sunglasses that are currently available in the market. However, they’ll be equipped with hardware that’ll allow users to take calls, show information to them on a small display, and have social networking features.
Facebook has hundreds of employees at its Redmond office in Washington working on these augmented reality glasses. However, the company has reportedly struggled to shrink the size of these glasses to make them more practical and appealing to users. Facebook’s Project Orion smart glasses are expected to be ready for consumers before 2023. However, one can’t say whether the project is practical enough to be ready for a commercial release. With that being said, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly asked the company’s augmented and virtual reality divisions to focus more on Project Orion.
Elsewhere, Facebook is also working on a voice assistant to rival the likes of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and the Google Assistant. Facebook envisions that its new AI assistant could be used with Project Orion, serving as user input for these glasses. In addition, Facebook is also working on a device code-named Agios, a ring-shaped device that allows users to interact via motion sensors.
