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metaorion glass
Meta’s Orion Glass is still quite bulky.
In addition to the actual glasses, Orion utilizes two other kits. One is a 182-gram “wireless computing pack” that must be placed near the glasses, and the other is an electromyography (EMG) wristband that allows you to control the AR interface. A series of hand gestures. The packs I saw were equipped with their own cameras and sensors, but Mehta said they have since simplified the device, which is in the form of a remote control, to be used primarily for connectivity and processing.
When I first saw the three-piece Orion setup at Connect, my first thought was that this was an interesting compromise to keep the glasses small. But once you’ve tried everything, it doesn’t feel like you’re compromising at all.
The width of the glasses was slightly larger than my face. (Carissa Bell, Engadget)
Orion’s interface uses a combination of eye tracking and gestures for control. After a quick adjustment the first time you put on your glasses, you can navigate AR apps and menus by looking at the interface or tapping your thumb and index finger together. Meta has been experimenting with wrist-based neural interfaces for years, and Orion’s EMG wristband is the result of that research. The band feels much like a cloth watch band and uses sensors to detect electrical signals generated by subtle movements of your wrist or fingers. Meta then uses machine learning to decode those signals and send them to Glass.
It may sound complicated, but I was surprised at how intuitive the navigation felt. The combination of quick gestures and eye tracking felt much more accurate than the hand tracking controls I used in VR. Orion also has hand tracking, but tapping your fingers together quickly feels much more natural than holding your hand out in front of your face.
Usability of Orion
Meta walked me through several demos aimed at showing off Orion’s capabilities. I asked Meta AI to generate an image and come up with a recipe based on some ingredients on the shelf in front of me. The latter is a trick I also tried with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, but with the exception of Orion, the Meta AI was also able to project recipe steps onto the wall in front of me.
I also answered several video calls, including one from a surprisingly lifelike codec avatar. I watched YouTube videos, scrolled through Instagram Reels, and dictated responses to incoming messages. If you’ve used a mixed reality headset, much of it will sound familiar. And a lot of it isn’t all that different from what you can do with a VR headset.
However, the magic of AR is that everything you see is superimposed on the world around you, so your surroundings are always fully visible. I especially appreciated this point when I got to the game portion of the walkthrough. I played a few rounds of a game created by Meta called Stargazer. In this game, the player controls a retro spaceship by shooting enemies with finger tap gestures while moving his head to avoid incoming obstacles. During that game, and subsequent rounds of AR Pong, I was easily able to carry on conversations with people around me while playing. As someone who tends to get motion sickness while playing VR games, I was grateful that I didn’t get disoriented or lose awareness of my surroundings.
Orion’s display relies on silicon carbide lenses, micro-LED projectors, and waveguides. The actual lens is clear, but it may fog up depending on the environment. One of the most impressive aspects is the 70 degree viewing angle. It was noticeably wider and more immersive than what I experienced with Snap’s AR Spectacles, which have a 46-degree field of view. At one point, I had three windows open in one multitasking view: my Instagram Reels, my video call, and my message inbox. I was certainly aware of the outer limits of the display, but I was able to easily see all three windows without having to physically move my head or adjust my position. While it’s still not the all-encompassing AR of a sci-fi movie, I never had any trouble keeping AR content in sight.
However, one thing that was a little disappointing was Orion’s visual resolution. At 13 pixels per degree, all colors looked a little muted, and projected text was noticeably blurry. None were hard to tell, but they were much less sharp than what I saw in Snap’s AR Spectacles, which have a resolution of 37 pixels per degree.
Ming Hua, Meta’s vice president of wearable devices, said one of the company’s top priorities is to increase the brightness and resolution of Orion’s display. She said there is good reason to believe this will improve over time, as a version with twice the pixel density of the prototype already exists. She’s also optimistic that Meta will eventually be able to bring down the cost of its AR technology, eventually bringing it down to “comparable to high-end cell phones.”
What does that mean?
The demo at Meta’s headquarters reminded me of the first time I tried a prototype of the wireless VR headset that would become known as Quest back in 2016. It was then called Santa Cruz, and that was immediately obvious. Rare VR users thought wireless indoor tracking headsets were the future of the company’s VR business. Now it’s almost hard to believe there was a time when Meta’s headset wasn’t completely removed.
Orion has the potential to grow even bigger. Now, Meta isn’t just trying to create a more convenient form factor for mixed reality enthusiasts and gamers. It’s a glimpse into how we see the future and what our lives will be like when we’re no longer tied to our phones.
For now, Orion is just a fleeting moment. This is far more complex than anything the company has attempted with VR. The meta still has a lot of work to do before an AR-enabled future becomes a reality. But prototypes show that much of that vision is closer than we think.
