Meta is reportedly in talks with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica to take a minority stake in the company. The move is seen as doubling down on a partnership that created the Meta Ray-Ban smartglasses.
The report, which comes from the Wall Street Journal, alleges Meta is currently considering a stake of about 5% of the Italian-French luxury eyewear group.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the report maintains the investment is not an assured deal, however if it goes through, it could be worth €4.33 billion euros ($4.73 billion) based on EssilorLuxottica’s latest market value of €86.50 billion euros.
Moving forward, Reality Labs has been divided into a central ‘Metaverse’ organization, responsible for Quest, and the new ‘Wearables’ organization to dedicated to other hardware, including its Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses.
The Meta Ray-Ban smartglasses currently on sale is a second-gen follow-up to its Facebook Ray-Ban Stories glasses released in 2021, which includes improved cameras, audio and more design options.
Notably, Meta Ray-Ban smartglasses lack any sort of display, meaning user input is handled by voice assistant or by basic touch on the glasses’ struts for things like taking pictures, videos, and listening to music.
What they do have though is iconic styling backed by a wide consumer appeal, something Meta would have trouble generating on its own. A minority stake in EssilorLuxottica could not only allow the company wider access to a host of sub-brands too, but also its retail locations that span Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, Vision Express, Pearle Vision and Target Optical.
Neither Meta nor EssilorLuxottica responded to requests for comment.
The third-generation Ray-Ban smartglasses will reportedly ship in 2025 with a HUD and neural wristband.
Ray-Ban Stories shipped in 2021 as the result of a collaboration between Meta and Luxottica. The current Stories are essentially camera glasses for taking hands-free first person photos and videos. They also have speakers and a microphone for music and phone calls but there is no display of any sort. Snapchat has been selling successive generations of a similar product, Spectacles, since 2017.
Ray-Ban Stories
The Verge’s Alex Heath reports Meta’s VP of AR Alex Himel told staff in an internal presentation that a second generation is set to release later this year. This was previously reported by The Information last year, which suggested it may take higher quality photos and videos. The first generation hardware yields poor results in low light.
More interestingly though, Himel reportedly said a third generation is planned to ship in 2025 which has a display and comes with a neural input wristband.
Called the “viewfinder”, this heads-up display will reportedly be used to show notifications, scan QR codes, and translate real-world text in real time. To be clear: this wouldn’t be true AR, it would be a small floating contextual display.
The neural wristband is based on the tech from CTRL-Labs, a startup Facebook acquired in 2019. Meta has discussed its development since openly. It works by using using EMG (electromyography) to read the neural signals passing through your arm from your brain to your fingers. Such a device could sense even incredibly subtle finger movements not clearly perceptible to people nearby. Himel reportedly said it will let the wearer “control the glasses through hand movements, such as swiping fingers on an imaginary D-pad”.
Himel reportedly said a higher-end model of the wristband will be offered which also acts as a smartwatch, with a display and wearer-facing camera. It will reportedly be deeply integrated with the glasses and support typical health and fitness features as well as video calls.
What About True AR Glasses?
A second generation of the wristband would come with the true AR glasses Meta plans to eventually ship in the latter half of the decade. The ultimate aim for the wristband is to unlock a new method of communication that’s faster than a typing on a keyboard.
Meta has reportedly been working on AR glasses for 8 years now, spending tens of billions of dollars on what Mark Zuckerberg hopes will be “an iPhone moment”. The first generation will likely be very expensive though, with a focus on early adopters and developers.
Last April Heath reported Meta’s target year for the first generation was 2024, but by June he said the target was pushed out to 2026, and Himel is reportedly now telling staff it’s 2027.
The company is apparently already thinking about monetization strategies, with Himel reportedly planning “a combination of selling virtual goods, optional add-ons like cloud backups, and AR ads.”
“Great to be back in Milan to discuss plans for new smart glasses with Leonardo Del Vecchio and the EssilorLuxottica team. Here Leonardo is using a prototype of our neural interface EMG wristband that will eventually let you control your glasses and other devices. “
Del Vecchio is the billionaire founder and chairman of Luxottica, the Italian company behind brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley. Meta and Luxottica have already collaborated on a smart glasses product which shipped in September, called Ray-Ban Stories. Stories are essentially camera glasses – they also have speakers and a microphone for music and phone calls but there is no display of any sort. Snapchat has been selling a similar product, Spectacles, since 2017.
Ray-Ban Stories
Until now it was unclear just how important Meta saw this partnership to its long term ambitions. EssilorLuxottica has a near monopoly on the eyewear market worldwide – its brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley are some of the most recognizable on the planet. Maintaining this partnership could be a key element of Meta’s strategy to take on Apple later this decade.
Last month The Information reported Meta plans to launch a second generation of Ray Ban Stories in 2023. Separately, The Verge reported Meta plans two distinct glasses for 2024 – affordable heads-up display glasses codenamed Hypernova, and expensive true AR glasses codenamed Project Nazare.
The report also claimed both Nazare and Hypernova will be bundled with Meta’s in-development neural wristband – the device Zuckerberg is demoing to Del Vecchio. Meta has discussed its development openly. The device reads the neural signals passing through your arm from your brain to your hand, using EMG (electromyography). Such a device can track finger movement precisely before it even happens, and can even sense incredibly subtle gestures not clearly perceptible to others nearby.
“Everyone I’ve talked to who has tried a prototype of the band Meta is working on says it’s one of the most impressive tech demos they’ve ever experienced. If it works at scale, the company thinks it could have the next mouse and keyboard” The Verge’s Alex Heath wrote.
Zuckerberg’s “will eventually let you control your glasses and other devices” statement seems to back up The Verge’s claim of this device being bundled with Meta’s future glasses – and demoing it to Del Vecchio suggests the EssilorLuxottica partnership will go far beyond today’s Ray-Ban Stories.
The online store seems to have launched on the same day Meta announced it is opening its first physical store in Burlingame, California. Both the physical store and online store sell the Quest 2 VR headset and Portal video calling appliances, while also marketing the Ray-Ban Stories smartglasses.
This change continues the slow but ongoing rebrand from Oculus Quest to Meta Quest:
The Oculus brand still remains as the name for the required smartphone app, the URL for the web version of the app store, and the brand for many of the developer tools and SDKs needed to build for Quest.
Ray-Ban Stories are $299 sunglasses powered by Facebook’s technology that can capture the wearer’s perspective up to 30 seconds at a time. They also take calls and stream music from your phone.
When Stories are out of power or turned off they’re just a pair of regular Ray-Ban sunglasses that look pretty good on anyone. But when in use they’re helping shape Facebook’s future steps in AR and VR.
Here’s my eyes-on report testing out this new hardware.
Facebook View
You need the Facebook View app to access the super-stabilized wide angle captures from Ray-Ban Stories.
The base model sunglasses sell from $299 – Facebook sent over a free pair to try. You need to sign in with your Facebook account, then when you flip the switch on and say “Hey Facebook take a video” or “Hey Facebook take a photo” it’ll capture your view. Videos are limited to 30 seconds and the glasses overheated after recording a bunch of videos in a row on a hot summer day.
Captures can seem pretty special given the right moment:
Facebook sent me the camera sunglasses. I’m just absolutely in love with this video I captured with them.
After using the glasses for a day I took them off and I was walking around outside and idly thought to myself “Hey Facebook take a video”. pic.twitter.com/glhzqRd1Um
There are two indicator lights — one facing inward and another facing outward — that turn on with a beep to start recording.
You can adjust the loudness of the beep but cannot turn it off, and you can’t use the settings to turn off the lights.
It comes with a charging case to store the glasses and charge their battery, similar to Apple’s AirPods. Captures can also be inititated via a button on the top of the right arm — long press to take a still or short press to capture a video. The wake word-driven Facebook voice assistant can be turned off in the app’s settings.
A New Kind Of Photography
I’ve wanted to get my hands on Google Glass and Snap’s Spectacles for exactly this first-person capture functionality but never found the time or money to make it happen. This feature needs to be tried in a personal setting to see any value, and Ray-Ban Stories are the first smartglasses I’ve used this way.
A perspective camera provides a personalized view that’s typically only seen with GoPros or in highly produced ads and movies. Ray-Ban Stories takes most of that overhead away and offers a one-press eye-level camera embedded within the frames of a familiar accessory. While the glasses can also play music streamed from your phone and answer calls with its microphone array, the real reason to think about getting them is for capturing those first-person moments.
Video marketing agencies commonly shoot commercials filmed with expensive stabilized cameras and apply heavy editing to produce similar first-person perspectives, with actors breaking the fourth wall to directly address the audience. Some readers will also remember science fiction with similar tech, like 1995’s Strange Days or episodes of Black Mirror. With these glasses, Facebook has me producing a similar kind of through-the-eyes content for the people who know or follow me.
VR/AR Field Test — Post-Phones?
Will people really say “Hey Facebook take a video” out in public?
I left the glasses in my car at the little league baseball fields because it didn’t feel appropriate to use them in that context. Getting up from my lawn chair to point my phone very obviously at my own child is very different from staring intently in one direction for 30 seconds while wearing a dark pair of sunglasses broadcasting a white light. My mom wanted to see the glasses, though, so we ended up bringing them out to show her how they worked and we took a few photos to demonstrate. She was impressed they looked just like normal sunglasses.
Walking back to the car after a little league game with the setting sun casting beautiful golden light across big open fields I couldn’t help thinking it would make a pretty cool setting for Space Pirate Trainer DX arena mode on Oculus Quest and considered saying “Hey Facebook take a video.” In that context, verbally invoking Facebook seemed out of place versus pressing the button. I didn’t pay attention at the time, but listening back to the video you can hear short snippets of conversations from other families as we walk by them loading up into their cars.
Late in 2020 Facebook shared some of its cutting edge research into “enhanced” hearing and discussed the social norms which might be affected by it. And here I am, around a year later, walking around the baseball fields and testing social norms with this new mode of capture.
The act of framing a photograph is something the photographer and subject typically have some say in. There can be a ritual of preparation in posing when you know a nearby capture is about to take place. You can stand and smile, or try to steer clear of the photo in some instances. If you weren’t the intended subject, you might even pick your moment to photo-bomb.
As a body-worn camera, Ray-Ban Stories erase posing and framing from photography almost entirely. Now the wearer is framing the entire world with snippets of their perspective and that means picking the right moments to record, or making the right moments happen.
Additional Permissions
In the setup for the Facebook View app a dialog explained optional data sharing with “time spent taking videos”, “average length of videos captured”, and “number of images captured” as examples of what’s collected. That information could help paint of picture of the battery and storage requirements needed in future designs.
When asked about whether additional commands will be supported with “Hey Facebook”, a representative wrote “we have an exciting roadmap” and replied “not at this time” to the question of whether the glasses will support alternative personal assistants with other wake words like “Hey Siri” or “Hey Google”.
Paving The Way For Public VR/AR
Facebook is essentially using the Ray-Ban brand to explore both how Facebook Reality Labs tech will be used by individuals and how societies will respond to the presence of citizen-worn cameras always ready to record. They’re testing battery, heat and storage needs that’ll be key information for the design of future AR glasses, but Ray-Ban Stories also test other things.
Space Pirate Trainer DX and its arena mode released on Oculus Quest the same day that Facebook announced the Ray-Ban glasses. Both efforts will send people who bought Facebook-powered hardware out into the physical world explaining what computerized glasses can do in this decade. And in the case of Ray-Ban, if people reject the use of the camera it won’t necessarily be Facebook’s brand which takes the criticism.
A lot of people will start to see soon how much better computerized eyewear is in the ’20s. If your last demo of smart eyewear was anything that had Google’s name attached to it, like Cardboard, Glass, or Daydream, you’re in for an eye-opening experience capturing your perspective with sunglasses or stepping into an Oculus Quest 2.
The Gear VR of Glasses?
Facebook trial and errored its way through Gear VR, Rift and Oculus Go headsets to zero in on the Oculus Quest self-contained VR product. Gear VR was interesting, but Quest is the product people are actually buying and using in significant ways.
Ray-Ban Stories might be thought of as the Gear VR of smart glasses.
This is a consumer product powered by Facebook technology which doesn’t carry Facebook’s branding or name, and it is missing key functionality that arguably denies it the right of even fitting in the product category it aspires to help define. While a display is (perhaps) a larger omission in Ray-Ban Stories than 6DoF tracking was from Gear VR, the Ray-Bans also stand on their own with a portable charging case and function as perfectly good sunglasses when the “smart” features aren’t needed. Gear VR was just a piece of plastic collecting dust when it wasn’t in use draining a phone’s battery.
Metaverse
Ray-Ban stories aren’t even very “smart”, at least not yet.
Software-wise, they test just how much people want eye-level perspective capture. And they are another route for Facebook to develop a personal assistant to rival those from other major tech companies.
Hardware-wise, these glasses represent a north star for Facebook to follow in whatever AR eyewear it plans to launch in the future.
At one point when I wasn’t wearing Ray-Ban Stories I thought to myself “Hey Facebook take a video”. Are we headed to a future where I could just think a command and have the glasses respond as expected?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Ray-Ban Stories are “an important step towards a future when phones are no longer a central part of our lives.”
How exactly does that future work? Do glasses become an accessory to your phone, or a replacement?
The task for Facebook’s soon-to-be CTO Andrew Bosworth will be releasing new wearable computers while also supporting the development of technologies that will define exactly how these things function in the so-called “metaverse” – whatever that actually means.
Well, that leak earlier today turned out to be right on the money. Facebook and Ray-Ban have officially announced Ray-Ban Stories, their smart glasses collaboration featuring three style varients, built-in cameras and much more, all available from £299 GBP/$299 USD.
Ray-Ban Stories: Round
Combining Facebook’s technical know-how with EssilorLuxottica’s – Ray-Ban’s parent company – styling, Ray-Ban Stories is their first foray into the burgeoning consumer smart glasses market. Available in three frame flavours – Round, Wayfarer and Meteor – as you might expect from Ray-Ban the options don’t stop there with a selection of frame and lens colours (5 colours, 6 colours and 4 colours respectively).
But what’s underneath all that fancy styling? The Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses feature dual integrated 5MP cameras that allow you to take photos (2592×1944 pixels) and up to 30-second videos (1184×1184 pixels at 30 FPS) using either a button located on the right arm or by using Facebook Assistant voice commands. Handy if you don’t want to keep looking at your phone. Storage-wise Facebook hasn’t given a GB capacity, just that the glasses can store 500 photos and 30 videos. And just so others know when you’re recording and LED will illuminate when recording is in process.
And that’s just the start of the tech built-in. The smart glasses have open-ear speakers built-in and a three-microphone audio array so you can take calls easily on the go and record decent audio for all those social videos. Oh and let’s not forget the touch control housed in the right arm so you can pause and play music, even turning the volume up and down. WiFi and Bluetooth are also built-in.
A new bit of tech wouldn’t be complete without its own app with Facebook View complementing the package. It’s designed to make importing, editing, and sharing captured content easy; whether that’s to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat and more.
Along with all those tech features and style combinations, Ray-Ban Stories come with a portable charging case to keep those expensive smart glasses safe and ready for use. The case itself can be charged with the supplied USB-C cable. Actual specifics including battery duration and charge time haven’t been released.
Augmented reality (AR) glasses these smart glasses are not but with a multi-year partnership in place Ray-Ban Stories are the first step towards that goal. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Facebook and Ray-Ban today unveiled Stories, a new line of tech-forward glasses the companies hope will pave the way for a future of smart and stylish AR devices. Stories appear to fit in the same category as the first three generations of Snap’s Spectacles, but also include integrated audio like Bose Frames, making them a little less smart than we had initially hoped—but a lot smarter than most.
Stories are being offered in three distinct flavors: Wayfarer, Round, and Meteor, all of which appear to be pretty similar to original Ray-Ban frame designs. They’re launching today at $300 direct from Ray-Ban as well as official online retailers in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Italy and Australia.
Stories look pretty sleek, which is partly because they don’t have any form of display within, as they feature the sort of lenses you might find in any normal pair of sunglasses or prescription specs. Instead, Stories includes dual 5 megapixel cameras on the temples that let you capture sterescopic video and still images. A single button on the right temple is used to start and stop 30-second video recordings, and take photos.
Image courtesy Ray-Ban, Facebook
Facebook is advertising a storage of about thirty 30-second videos or 500 photos, which is said to be kept locally encrypted on the device itself. That’s the only storage metric available to us, so there’s no word on how large that space physically is in GBs.
The frames also house microphones and integrated speakers that stream audio over Bluetooth 5.0, which will let you listen to music or podcasts, and take calls in addition to voice recognition stuff like saying “Hey Facebook, take a video.”
That Facebook Assistant integration and the Facebook View app come part an parcel with Stories, the latter of which acts as your content management platform where you can import, edit, create and share captures.
Check out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reveal Stories in the video below:
As for privacy, a capture LED on the right temple indicates when Stories are recording, and they also feature a physical off button as well on the glasses’ left strut.
Models are offered in both sunglasses versions with a variety of colors or clear lenses featuring clear with blue light filter, brown gradient, green, grey, blue polarized, and transition lenses.
A magnetic charging case also ships with Stories, although the battery situation is far from clear, both in terms of on-device runtime and added runtime with the case.
Image courtesy Ray-Ban, Facebook
Here’s a few basic specs:
Photo stills: 2,592 x 1,944px
Video camera: Minimum 1,184 x 1,184px@30fps
Dual micro speakers
3 Microphone Audio Array
WIFI 802.11 Ac, 2.45/5 Ghz
Bluetooth 5.0
OS Compatibility – IOS 13 / Android 8.1 Minimum
Charging Case – USB-C charging
Facebook seems to be playing a little fast and loose by specifically calling Stories “smart glasses.” To be fair, Stories are basically a new product segment that aim to bridge the gap between camera glasses like earlier iterations of Snap Spectacles and audio sunglasses like Bose Frames. Smarter glasses, maybe?
Unlike augmented reality, which shows the user digital information that’s presented as if exists in reality itself (think Microsoft HoloLens, Nreal Light, Magic Leap 1), smartglasses typically present actionable information to the user via a small screen that functions as a heads-up display (HUD). Much like a smartwatch, smartglasses are supposed to provide info like text messages, biometrics, incoming phone calls, or turn-by-turn directions. Examples of smartglasses include Google Glass, North Focals, and a number of devices available from Vuzix.
This is only the first of what Facebook calls a “multi-year partnership” with Ray-Ban parent company EssilorLuxottica, so it’s likely this is only the first of what will become an evolving product segment towards smarter devices than this.
After a week of teases, Facebook and Ray-Ban are finally announcing Ray-Ban Stories, a new line of smartglasses with built-in cameras and Facebook features.
Check out the full announcement video including an introduction to the kit from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Rocco Basilico of Ray-Ban brand owner Luxottica below.
Ray-Ban Stories Specs And Features
As expected (and essentially confirmed in a leak earlier today), Ray-Ban Stories are sunglasses that resemble traditional Ray-Ban models with small cameras embedded in the top corners of the rims. Like the Snap Spectacles before them, you can use these cameras to instantly capture point-of-view footage, as was demonstrated by Facebook VP of VR and AR, Andrew Bosworth, in a tease earlier this week. The glasses don’t, however, feature any sort of VR or AR functionality.
The dual 5MP cameras capture up for 30 seconds of video or images. An LED lights up when the glasses are recording or taking a photo. There’s also built-in Bluetooth support and a 3-microphone audio array allowing you to connect to your phone to take calls or listen to apps.
As for Facebook features, the glasses are integrated with the Facebook Assistant, allowing you to operate the glasses with your voice. You can also use the Facebook View companion app to share media through other services including non-Facebook applications.
Ray-Ban Stories Price And Release Date
Ray-Ban Stories are launching today in the US, UK, Canada, Italy, Ireland and Australia and start at $299 USD, the same price as the entry-level 128GB Oculus Quest 2 VR headset. You can also pick them up with Polarized lenses starting at $329 or Transitions lenses starting at $379. The glasses come in three models named Wayfarer (Wayfarer L), Round and Meteor and are available in five different colors.
Are Ray-Ban Stories AR Glasses?
In a nutshell: no. AR technology has a spatial understanding of the world around you and then uses that information to project virtual images into your environment. Ray-Ban Stories won’t do this, and they won’t even have an overlay interface. They do, however, represent a form factor that Facebook is no doubt keen to one day reach with an AR headset; current devices like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap One are bulky and unfit for all-day use. Facebook Reality Labs, the division of the company responsible for AR and VR technology, is using prototype AR glasses not intended for consumer use, but it will be some time before the company brings a true consumer AR headset to market.
What do you make of Ray-Ban Stories? Will you be picking up a pair? Let us know in the comments below!
Today was supposed to be the day that Ray-Ban and Facebook make their big smart glasses reveal but it seems a leak has beaten them to it. Several images have appeared on Twitter showcasing the new product for the first time, indicating functionality close to Snap’s Spectacles.
Over on the prolific @evleaks Twitter account, a collection of images reveal three designs for the smart glasses all under the banner of Ray-Ban Stories. These offer some classic looking designs including Round, Wayfarer (seen below) and Meteor. There’s even imagery of what customers get in the box, with both companies logos on the front but only Ray-Ban’s on the glasses themselves.
While Facebook has talked about the glasses for a while they’re not going to be full augmented reality (AR) glasses that Project Aria envisions. As you can see from the designs, each model has a pair of cameras built into the frames to record video. Facebook Reality Labs’ Head Andrew “Boz” Bosworth has released several teasing videos this week alongside a sunglasses emoji suggesting the footage recorded has come for the new smart glasses.
Other than that footage, neither Facebook nor Ray-Ban has revealed any specifications for the upcoming models, obviously, all the official announcements will be taking place later today. Hopefully, they’ll include the launch date and price, which probably won’t be cheap considering the Ray-Ban branding.
These Ray-Ban Stories are only the first step for Facebook on the road to fully realised AR glasses but the company is still playing catchup when it comes to consumer products. Earlier this year Snap Inc. revealed its fully AR Spectacles using waveguide displays, whilst company’s like Nreal and Rokid have got products on the market or coming to market respectively.
As further details come to light later today, VRFocus will let you know.
Facebook and Ray-Ban are collaborating on what promises to be a pair of smartglasses, something that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in July would “let you do some pretty neat things.” Well, the companies are getting ready to reveal the device on September 9th, 2021, so we’re sure to learn more then.
Ray-Ban, a brand of the mega Italian-French optics firm EssilorLuxottica, released a splash page showing off the silhouette of a very Wayfarer-looking pair of specs. Although we’ve heard about the deal for two years now, little is known about the upcoming ‘smart glasses’—their words, not ours—they at very least have the ability record high-quality video.
Facebook Reality Labs VP Andrew Bosworth tweeted a video earlier this week showing off some of his family vacation, which notably features a cameo by none other than Mark Zuckerberg. It’s thought these were recorded with the Ray-Ban/Facebook specs.
Bosworth also tweeted another video emphasizing the device’s ability to be capture video whilst leaving the user free to golf two-handed. In both videos we can see Zuckerberg and April Bosworth donning what appear to be Ray-Bans, although it’s unclear if either these are the ‘smart’ variety or otherwise.
Smartglasses are a wearable device separate from augmented reality, and are generally defined by their ability to present useful information to the user, often in the form of a small floating screen or heads-up display (HUD). Like a smartwatch, information ranges from things like text messages, biometrics, incoming phone calls, turn-by-turn directions, etc. Think Google Glass or Vuzix Blade—not Microsoft HoloLens or Magic Leap 1.
In Facebook’s Q2 2021 earnings call in late July, Zuckerberg said he was excited release the glasses whilst continuing to “make progress on the journey towards full augmented reality glasses in the future.” We’re hoping to learn what precisely separates the Ray-Ban specs from camera glasses like Snap’s Spectacles (gen 1-3), which only record brief snippets of video.
If you’re interested in learning what separates smartglasses and augmented reality, read more here. We’ll be following this story as it breaks tomorrow, so check back for more then.
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