Facebook is about to make a major foray into wearables with smart glasses set to be unveiled this week in partnership with eyewear giant Ray-Ban.
A promotional image posted on the Ray-Ban website showed its logo side by side with Facebook, as the date "09 09 2021" was revealed. The image did not indicate if it meant September 9, 2021as the date to expect more news about the product or the actual release of the smart glasses.
The publishing of the Ray-Ban promotional page coincides with a video shared by Facebook's head of Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Andrew Bosworth.
The video showed snippets of Bosworth's daily life, which includes fishing with his family, playing cornhole in the backyard, and pelting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with pillows. While Zuckerberg had been surprised by the first two throws, and was even taken to the ground by a large pillow, he triumphantly catches the third, raising his arms in glory.
Given Bosworth's role in Facebook, it seemed the videos were taken using the social media giant's smart glasses, which it is developing with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica, Business Insider revealed.
Its functionality would seem similar to Snap's Spectacles, having the glasses capturing your real-world view, which you can then share on Facebook or Instagram. But how will Facebook's smart glasses with Snap's product first released in 2016?
Facebook Smart Glasses' Long Term Goal is to be AR-Compatible
While initially, both glasses won't be no different, features-wise, the long-term goal for Facebook's smart glasses is to become fully AR-compatible, offering a heads-up display that would complement the digital elements of the user's view.
Facebook actually previewed the AR functionality through a video detailing its "Project Aria" experiments last year. It emphasized the potential of AR glasses in different contexts. The September 2020 Project Aria reveal hinted Facebook was close to reaching that stage until Bosworth announced last January that the first release of Facebook's smart glasses won't be AR-equipped.
If the soon-to-be-released Facebook smart glasses won't be no different in terms of functionality with Snap's Spectacles, how can the social media giant lure customers to buy a pair or two? Facebook is expected to lure its immense user base for huge take-up in the wearable, given that it has a direct connection to both Facebook and Instagram, as opposed to Snapchat.
Zuckerberg: Facebook Smart Glasses Can 'Do Some Pretty Neat Things'
Zuckerberg announced in July that the smart glasses would be Facebook's next hardware launch, incorporating Ray-Ban's "iconic form factor" allowing you to "do some pretty neat things," The Verge reported.
These glasses form part of the social media giant's push to build wearables that augment the world visually and aurally. It won't however have the capability to project images into the environment. The company is also planning a neural wristband technology, which it envisions as the future of AR, for a future roll-out.
