When Will Meta Release Its Smart Glasses and Other Gaming Tech?
The fact that Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 confirmed that CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees the metaverse as the way forward. Yet, the mixed reaction to their Horizon Worlds game suggests that the new big leap forward might not come until they release their smart glasses and other pieces of hardware that should let us fully enter the metaverse, so when might this happen?
The Latest Information
Zuckerberg spoke to Meta staff recently, as the company shared details of their VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) plans with their Reality Labs staff. Their new big hope appears to be the release of smart glasses with display, expected to launch in 2025. It isn’t yet clear in what ways these glasses will improve on the Ray-Bans Stories that allow users to record short videos, listen to audio, and make voice commands, which you can find out more about here – https://engineering.fb.com/.
Along with the glasses, we should also see the launch of a neural interface smartwatch that can be used to control them. Zuckerberg said that he believes we’ll be using glasses like these as much as smartphones in the future. However, the AR eyewear that becomes available in 2025 still won’t be fully metaverse-ready, as we’ll need to wait until 2027 to get the chance to buy them at full functionality.
Before that, the Quest 3 headset should be out later this year, according to https://www.techradar.com/, but it is said to be more focused on work tools than gaming. This leads us to the big question of whether the other Meta hardware we’ve looked at will also have this focus or if gamers will be taken into account as well.
Other Gaming Technology on the Way
These items we’ve looked at are far from being the only pieces of gaming tech due to hit the market in the next couple of years or so. This review by https://mashable.com/ of the CES 2023 show introduced us to upcoming hardware like the Project Leonardo Ps5 controller, a device specifically designed to be used by those with disabilities, and Project Carol, which is a headset for gaming chairs with haptic feedback and surround sound.
A look at https://www.bonus.net.nz/ shows us how the casino game industry is evolving as well. Sites like Wildz and LeoVegas offer a huge range of slots and live casino games, but in this case, the hardware is used by the casino and their game providers rather than the player. For example, live dealer games are live-streamed, and some of them already include augmented reality (AR) to make them more immersive. Only time will tell if we will get a full VR casino experience in the comfort of our own homes.
It was clear from the start that changing Facebook to Meta was a huge gamble, driven by Mark Zuckerberg’s unshakeable belief that the metaverse is the future of the internet. While we’ve seen a lot of interesting advances in this area in the last couple of years, there’s still a long way to go before we can expect to see items like AR glasses for the metaverse becoming everyday items.
We’ll need to wait longer to find out more about these smart glasses and whether they have an impact on the gaming market. However, it seems certain that this won’t be the only new hardware that changes the face of gaming in different ways in the near future.
