Hands-on with Meta’s Orion augmented-reality smart glasses prototype

Probably the most impressive aspect of Meta‘s Orion augmented reality glasses has more to do with size and luxury than flashy computer graphics.

CNBC senior media and tech correspondent Julia Boorstin was in a position to use Orion this week at Meta’s annual Connect conference, and he or she was captivated by the prototype’s compact form relative to the varied Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro virtual reality headsets.

“What was really striking to me about these was that they were incredibly lightweight,” Boorstin said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the Orion glasses on Wednesday and pitched them as “a glimpse of a future that I feel goes to be pretty exciting.” The glasses are black and thick framed and are available with a wireless “puck” that permits the device to run apps like a holographic game of digital chess or pingpong that appear as digital graphics spliced into the actual world.

The experimental glasses are a part of Zuckerberg’s multibillion-dollar plans to construct the following generation of non-public computing for the so-called metaverse, a term utilized by Meta to explain people interacting with each other online in virtual 3D spaces.

While Orion just isn’t able to putting users in fully virtual worlds, the glasses can overlay digital graphics onto the actual world. And in contrast to VR headsets that might be cumbersome to wear for prolonged periods, Boorstin said she found the Orion glasses to be an excellent fit.

“The shape factor didn’t feel meaningfully different than wearing a pair of heavy, peculiar glasses, and so they weren’t uncomfortable to wear,” she said.

Though the present incarnation of the Orion AR glasses could pass as a movie prop for the film “Revenge of the Nerds,” Boorstin said she believes they’re only going to get smaller as technology improves.

“That is the primary generation — 4 years from now, how much smaller will they be?” Boorstin said.

When wearing the AR glasses, Boorstin was in a position to see digital holograms displaying the visual icons of apps like Instagram, Facebook, and a few extras like a browser and a video game mixed with the environment inside a small office at Meta’s headquarters.

Boorstin saw those digital icons overlaid atop her real-world surroundings together with her own eyes. That is an improvement over “passthrough” techniques utilized by current VR devices. For passthrough, firms use cameras on the surface of their headsets to indicate users a digital representation of the actual world blended with computer graphics through their device screens.

Orion is in a position to overlay digital imagery on the actual world using a far more expensive method. Its lenses aren’t constructed from traditional glass or plastic but moderately a refractive material called silicon carbide. When the Orion’s miniaturized projectors, in-built to the arms of the glasses, beam light into the silicon carbide lenses, users can see “holograms” of their visual view, an experience Boorstin said “felt totally normal and really natural.”

When the holograms were turned off, “it felt as in case you were wearing glasses or sunglasses, and it wasn’t distracting or nauseating,” Boorstin said.

Boorstin was in a position to open, close and scroll through the apps with the assistance of a wristband, that she said felt much like an old, lightweight Fitbit.

“The wristband can sense your finger and hand movements, so your hand might be by your side,” Boorstin said, describing how her finger movements and gestures manipulated the digital icons. “I used to be surprised that it was so accurate and that I could determine these hand motions, and it picked them up exactly.”

In a single demo, the Orion glasses were in a position to discover various food ingredients, like chia seeds, that were opened up on a table. It then projected an appropriate recipe that appeared digitally above the real-world seeds. In one other demo, Boorstin played an easy game of pong, except the video game graphics were projected onto a real-world desk in front of her.

One demo that basically impressed her involved seeing the face of Stephen Desaulniers, her producer, digitally appear in front of her while he called from one other room. The general experience of the 3D video call “felt very clear” to Boorstin, who noticed that the graphic’s resolution would change depending on where she placed it inside her visual view. It was enough to startle her into questioning whether or not the producer could actually see her in real life because it appeared as if he was there in front of her (he couldn’t).

“I could see him perfectly, and he couldn’t see me,” Boorstin said. “But I could hear him, and it was like I used to be FaceTiming with him, but he was in my glasses.”

By experiencing Orion, Boorstin said she has a greater sense of how Meta’s research and development is directly benefiting the corporate’s other products, like its Quest headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses.

“They have been working so hard to make these components teeny, tiny, efficient, weightless,” she said.