Meta and Snap are about to show off their new AR glasses

Next month, two longtime rivals in social media will face off with major demonstrations of what they think will eventually be the next major computing platform: AR glasses.

The first big reveal will come from Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, who, sources tell me, is set to unveil the fifth generation of Spectacles on September 17th at his annual Partner Summit in Los Angeles. The following week, on September 25th. I’ve confirmed that Mark Zuckerberg is slated to debut Meta’s first AR glasses, codenamed Orion, at his Connect conference in Menlo Park.

Though Meta and Snap have pursued different paths in developing AR glasses, both are grappling with the same challenge: the technology still isn’t ready for mainstream adoption. As a result, neither company intends to sell the glasses they’ll showcase next month, according to insiders. Instead, Snap will repeat its 2021 strategy, distributing this upgraded Spectacles model to select developers and partners. Snap is reportedly producing fewer than 10,000 units, while Meta is manufacturing even fewer of its Orion glasses.

Zuckerberg has been hinting that Orion’s arrival for several months, even going so far as to surreptitiously tease the glasses on his desk in an Instagram post last month. Both he and Spiegel see wearable displays as the “holy grail” device that could eventually be as ubiquitous as smartphones. Orion is the first proof-of-concept device for a roadmap of glasses the company has planned through the end of this decade.

While originally conceived as a commercial product, Orion’s release was scrapped in 2022 due to factors like cost, battery life, and display quality. Meta has instead opted to make it a demo device for employees and select outsiders. Zuckerberg has already started showing the glasses to folks like Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, who recently visited his Lake Tahoe home for an extensive interview, ahead of Connect next month.

”In the domain of consumer electronics, it might be the most advanced thing that we’ve ever produced as a species,” CTO Andrew Bosworth told me about Orion late last year. “At the same time, I think it’s important for us to set expectations. These things were built on a prohibitively expensive technology path. For us to return to this capability in a consumer electronics price point and form factor is the real work that we have ahead of us.”

Down in Los Angeles, Snap has recently been waffling on whether to sell its newest Spectacles, which, I’m told, are mostly an upgraded version of the 2021 design with a wider field of view and improved battery life. Like Orion, they cost thousands of dollars to build, though they lack the accompanying wristband Meta has developed for controlling its glasses with EMG technology it acquired through CTLR-Labs.

Since the first pair of Spectacles came out in 2016, Spiegel has been clear that, like Zuckerberg, he also wants to be a major player in whatever hardware platform comes after phones. “If we’re going to succeed on software with a platform shift, we need a seat at the table and our own hardware,” someone who has been involved with Snap’s hardware efforts recently told me.

Unlike Meta, though, there is growing skepticism that Snap’s core business isn’t yet in a place to afford such an expensive, long-term bet. When Spiegel debuted the last version of Spectacles three years ago, Snap’s stock price was riding high during the pandemic. Now, it is hovering near the lowest it has ever traded since going public in 2017. (Spokespeople for Snap and Meta declined to comment for this story.)

“Snap’s problems are not related to scale; user metrics and daily engagement are healthy,” Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners wrote in a recent research note. “We suspect the key challenge is that Snap is still far too focused on its AR/hardware vision for the future, competing with companies like Meta and Google, who have far greater spending power. Snap is investing hundreds of millions annually into Snap Labs, which would be justifiable if the core business were growing significantly faster.”

Zuckerberg is spending much more on Reality Labs, of course. I’ve heard Orion alone has cost billions of dollars to develop since inception, which is an amount of money that even Meta likely feels pressured to justify at this point.

Even still, Zuckerberg is going into September’s Orion unveiling from a relative position of strength versus Snap that’s hard to deny. His focus on AI coupled with the profit of the core business has awarded him more room to make speculative bets. Then there’s the early success of his partnership with Ray-Ban for separate smart glasses. Spiegel, meanwhile, has to prove that Snapchat’s ads business can be turned around, and that he can out-innovate Meta in the capital-intensive industry of hardware.

We’ve all seen how the social media phase of this David-versus-Goliath battle played out; the question is whether this next phase plays out differently.

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