Meta is allegedly bringing its long-dormant smartwatch back into production as it plans to use the smartwatch to control and interface with its upcoming AR glasses.
Meta has long harbored ambitions to create one of best smartwatches in business, but we thought his plans were on hold for the time being. in November 2022 Reuters (opens in a new tab) reported that Meta has completed work on two unreleased smartwatches and other hardware projects such as Portal.
However, according to Edge (opens in a new tab)Alex Heath, who has reportedly seen an internal presentation mapping the next four years of Meta releases, the smartwatch will be closely aligned with the AR glasses that Meta is working on. These smart glasses will overlay digital information over a view of the real world and will be connected to a smartwatch that has been described as a “neural interface” that helps control the flow of information sent to the eyes.
The AR smartwatch and glasses are said to be available for Meta employees to test in 2024, with a general launch planned for 2027. The smartwatch will also have health and fitness features and an interface with Meta’s social media apps, although no more information has been provided on the report.
The well-known leak Kuba Wojciechowski also published last month, claiming that the Meta smartwatch was back on the table. It’s a leak that is now gaining more credibility thanks to the Verge report.
Leak: A new version of the @Meta smartwatch is being developed, new details and photos below👇 pic.twitter.com/mlEgEQvWp5January 31, 2023
Before it was canned, Meta’s undeveloped smartwatch reportedly featured a camera and a removable screen, presumably so that you could hold the watch up to your face and make video calls through it. This feature appears to have been incorporated into the AR glasses, making the watch an optional control.
How much will there be an appetite for it? The Meta’s continued quest to connect us all seems to be at odds with the emerging trend of wearables not being as cumbersome as they used to be.
WITH smart rings like Samsung’s latest gadget Down screenless and hybrid watches“invisible” wearables seem to be the direction the industry is headed. Generation Z, who grew up in constant contact, is leaning towards retro technologies and aesthetics to get away from it all. Do we really want the ads to appear in our eyes like some dystopian Black Mirror sketch?
Meta, which has made the lion’s share of its money selling ads based on the preferences of its users over the years, may want that for our future, but I don’t think that’s a sentiment shared by the market.
I may be wrong, but given the direction the industry seems to be headed, it seems to be more of the same hubris that causes Zuckerberg & co. sink billions of dollars into the Metaverse, despite strong resistance and an extremely slow adoption rate among customers.