A significant alliance with Luckey Palmer’s Anduril guarantees that smart glasses are set for a major launch.
It’s well-known that Meta has invested tens of billions into research and development for VR and AR technologies. Since acquiring Oculus in 2014, the firm has developed almost a dozen distinct VR headsets, and while VR’s market success is lukewarm compared to smartphones, Meta’s vision has consistently extended beyond merely being another console like PlayStation or Nintendo.
A fresh collaboration with Anduril, a firm established by Palmer Luckey, the original founder of Oculus VR, assures that Meta’s aspirations will come to fruition soon. This initiative transcends traditional commercial or gaming products and is aimed directly at the U.S. government and military, which are typically unimpressed by the thought of spending immense sums of money.
Anduril’s announcement mentions that the innovations being delivered have “been funded through private capital, without taxpayer support, and [are] designed to save the U.S. military billions of dollars by utilizing high-performance components and technology initially created for commercial use.”
That last statement is crucial. It indicates that the investment Meta Reality Labs has made over the last ten years will finally get the public validation that Mark Zuckerberg has been pursuing, and the opportunities arising from new government projects will evolve R&D initiatives like Meta Orion into fully commercial offerings.
Start the production line
The past two years have witnessed a notable surge in the supply and interest in smart glasses. I contend that 2023’s Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses were the first substantial product in the smart glasses arena, and even their impact became apparent only after the rollout of Meta AI support six months post-launch.
We are now anticipating a year that could unveil a third-generation Ray-Ban Meta alongside a new set of Google AR glasses, along with various other brands, including Xreal.
Nevertheless, none of these devices seem to match the sophistication of Meta Orion, which distinctly felt like a pair of glasses with a Meta Quest headset somehow integrated inside. There’s a solid rationale for this disparity: price. In a comprehensive interview last October, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth commented that mass-production Orion glasses would be priced at $10,000 each if released last Fall.
What better way to finance costly production lines than with the backing of seemingly boundless military budgets?
The necessary technology to mass-produce something akin to Orion simply doesn’t exist yet. While it could be developed, it would require billions in investment, and that expense would inevitably translate to consumers in the form of $10,000 glasses that only a select number of wealthy enthusiasts could rationalize.
Thus, what better avenue to support this eventual path to commercialization than the U.S. government, particularly the U.S. military? After all, the fiscal budget for the Department of Defense in 2025 stands at $849.8 billion, approximately 14 times what Meta has allocated for R&D over the last decade.
The military won’t be particularly troubled by the price tag of $10,000 glasses if they can finally achieve what Microsoft’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) project attempted in 2021 at an expenditure of around $20 billion. Anduril took on that contract this past February and is now collaborating with Meta to ensure its state-of-the-art AI-powered software is enhanced by Meta’s top-tier AR hardware.
Palmer Luckey’s re-engagement with Meta is just one element of the series of fortunate events that had to happen for this future to unfold. Luckey was let go from Facebook two years after the acquisition of his Oculus VR company, presumably due to political factors. “The individuals responsible for my dismissal, who orchestrated my downfall, who took my creation from me, are no longer at Meta,” Luckey remarked in a recent interview.
This created the opportunity for Luckey and Zuckerberg to establish a new partnership beneficial to both, facilitating the integration of AR and VR technologies that Luckey had pioneered with those that Meta has financed since his exit from the company nearly a decade ago.
Moreover, Luckey mentions that these new headsets will be produced entirely in America, another unlikely achievement in an electronics sector heavily reliant on China.
Palmer Luckey’s rehabilitation in Meta’s favor signifies something significant on the horizon.
In fact, the partnership seems to cover all of Meta’s Reality Labs initiatives, including Meta AI and its related technologies. “The collaboration builds on Meta’s pre-existing Reality Labs investments and its efforts to promote the adoption of its Llama open-source AI models for national security applications by the U.S. and its closest allies.”
Once the production facilities are established and resources are aligned, the pathway is clear for the affordable, American-manufactured smart glasses that were once part of
