I tried Orion, Meta’s holographic glasses, and they confirmed what I feared.

Here’s what you need to know about Orion, the new smart glasses (nerds) that Mark Zuckerberg unveiled this Wednesday:

1. You can’t buy them. You won’t be able to do that any time soon either. You may never be able to do this.

Apparently The glasses cost Meta about $10,000.and the company says it needs time to find a price point that makes them viable: think about something around $1,000, like a high-end laptop or smartphone. (The $10,000 figure comes from Alex Heath of Edge. Meta declined to comment on this figure).

If all goes well, this may take several years.

2. I tried them, they are very cool!

They don’t force you seem cool – you look like a person with something technological on your face – but The ideas and technology behind it are truly exciting.. If you’re one of those people who complain that Silicon Valley hasn’t been doing anything but social media and soul-crushing monetization machines for years, here’s a convincing answer.

And more importantly, unlike other facial computing technologies I’ve tried over the years – Google Glass, Apple Vision Pro, Meta’s own Quest family of glasses – with these I can imagine myself buying them and using them in real life.

My brief experience with Orion contains important caveats. The biggest one is that they are not ready for mass production yet. But if they come true, they will deliver what many people in the tech world and beyond want: laptop built into glasses.

What would you do with a computer that you could wear in your head?

To begin with, many of the things you can do with a mobile phone are answering and answering phone calls and making video calls. Send and receive text messages. Take photos and videos. Watch the video. Play games that waste your time. Experiment with AI.

And because Orion fits your face like glasses—bulky glasses that use silicon carbide instead of glass— you can do all these things by observing and interacting with everything and everyone around you.

This is “augmented reality”, which is digital images placed in the real world, rather than “virtual reality”, where you are completely immersed in a digital landscape.

All this has its obvious disadvantages. If you think it’s annoying to talk to someone who’s constantly looking at their phone to check a message or viral video, imagine what it’s like to talk to someone who’s looking at you and something else at the same time.

But there are also some very intriguing positives. The most obvious: Imagine having a task—like changing a tire, making marinara sauce, or solving a math problem—and being able to simultaneously look at what you want to do and the instructions on how to do it.

Orion uses eye tracking, which means you select digital items just by looking at them.. And you can manipulate them—turning an app on or off, replying to a text message, scrolling through Reels videos—using subtle gestures and finger snaps. These gestures are captured by a snug, but not bulky, bracelet** that records your muscle movements using electromyography*** and transmits them wirelessly to your glasses.

The Orion is also the closest to face-to-face computer I’ve ever seen that you can take on the go. Unlike other devices I’ve seen, it doesn’t need to be connected to a bulky power source or cell phone. Instead of, Wireless connection to a computer device the size of a TV remote that you can carry in your pocket. and connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi or mobile network. Meta claims its battery will last two to three hours of continuous use.

With this I will finish talking about the characteristics of Orion. Because it seems pretty stupid to delve too deeply into something that’s still in development and may never make it to mass production.

It is also important to emphasize that my brief demonstration took place in the Meta building, surrounded by Meta employees who gave me a tour of the Meta. I have no idea how this works or if it works in the real world..

In fact, Meta’s executives do the same thing. They say they’re going to start “testing” the device with many employees to get a better idea of ​​how it works, while continuing to look for ways to make it lighter and cheaper.

This brings us to two questions about Zuckerberg’s announcement this Wednesday.

First: Why does Meta show something that no one will be able to buy – at best – for many years? It reminds me of pre-iPhone presentations, where tech companies used to show off things they could make someday, but very often didn’t.

When I ask Meta leaders this question, they whisper that they want their colleagues to see the work they are doing and feel encouraged by the progress they are making. But of course there are other ways to boost morale, such as a record share price, as happened this week.

My theory has to do with the stock price: Zuckerberg, who has been criticized over the years for investing billions in his metaverse dreams, wants to show the world – and especially investors – that all those dollars weren’t wasted.. And it’s very close to a consumer device that people could buy in large quantities.

This brings us to the second question: Why would Meta, whose online advertising business is one of the largest in the world, want to make hardware?

This question is easier to answer. More practically: no matter how fantastic this money-making machine is, it cannot work without the mobile phones produced by Apple and Google, companies that force Meta to follow their rules and restrictions. If Orion, or any other device created by Meta, becomes the future of computing, then Zuckerberg may explode his business with their devices.

But if you like feel-based answers: Orion’s debut is part of the Mark Zuckerberg 3.0 era.

An era in which he says he no longer apologizes (though he continues to do so) and that he is done with politics (though politics is not done with him). The one where she tries out new looks (including her own).

What if you want to ride to the top with some cool new technology, even if it’s not ready for prime time yet? That’s what he’s going to do.

*The entire time I was testing the Orion, I kept thinking about the teenagers I always see with only one AirPod in their ear. The idea, presumably, is that they can continue to listen to whatever they want, while being reluctant to listen to you too. I find this way of interacting with the world, half inside, half outside, incredibly frustrating. But I’m old. Your opinion may differ.

**For some reason, some metahumans call this a “neural bracelet”, which makes it seem like it somehow reads your brain. Fortunately, this is not the case.

***(I hadn’t heard of this term until this week either.)

Get to know each other how we work V BusinessInsider.

Tags: Metaverse, Trends, Meta, Apple, Mark Zuckerberg