Meta is Reportedly Planning to Add Display Screens to its Smart Glasses
Meta reportedly plans to add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses as early as next year.
According to a report in The Financial Times, Meta is preparing to add display screens to its line of Ray-Ban smart glasses in the second half of 2025.
The display screens will be small and likely be used to show notifications or responses from Meta’s AI virtual assistant, according to people familiar with Meta’s plans cited by the publication.
The Financial Times reports that this move comes as Meta pushes further into wearable devices. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is betting that these lightweight headsets will be the next main computing device for consumers, as rivals such as Apple, Google, and Snap also race to develop similar products.
The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have become a surprise hit among consumers after the latest version was launched in September 2023. Earlier this month, Ray-Ban’s Meta smart glasses rolled out several new upgrades, including real-time AI video capability, live language translation, and Shazam.
In September, Meta unveiled its first pair of augmented reality (AR) glasses “Orion” — a prototype Zuckerberg describe as “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen.”
The smart glasses can project digital representations of media, people, games, and communications onto the real world. Orion interacts with the wearer’s voice, typing, or hand gestures.
But Orion also has a “wrist-based neural interface” which lets the wearer send a signal from their brain to the device, using a wristband that translates nerve signals into digital commands.
Zuckerberg says the product will eventually become Meta’s “first consumer full holographic AR glasses.” However, there is still no release date for Orion, which experts believe is still several years out.
Experts say the platform faces big challenges, such as making glasses that look good, work well, last long on a charge, and are affordable. On top of that, there are major supply chain issues to solve.
One of Orion’s standout features is its use of silicon carbide lenses, a material not commonly used in optics. These lenses allow Meta to create much bigger and brighter images than regular glass can.
However, silicon carbide lenses are expensive and hard to produce in large quantities. This makes it difficult to turn Orion into an affordable product for the mass market without losing one of its key advantages.