Meta Announces New Smartglasses Features, Delays International Rollout Claiming 'Unprecedented' Demand'

This week Meta announced several new features for "Meta Ray-Ban Display" smartglasses:

- A new teleprompter feature for the smart glasses (arriving in a phased rollout)

- The ability to send messages on WhatsApp and Messenger by writing with your finger on any surface. (Available for those who sign up for an "early access" program).

- "Pedestrian navigation" for 32 cities. ("The 28 cities we launched Meta Ray-Ban Display with, plus Denver, Las Vegas, Portland, and Salt Lake City," and with more cities coming soon.)


But they also warned Meta Ray-Ban Display "is a first-of-its-kind product with extremely limited inventory," saying they're delaying international expansion of sales due to inventory constraints — and also due to "unprecedented" demand in the U.S. CNBC reports: "Since launching last fall, we've seen an overwhelming amount of interest, and as a result, product waitlists now extend well into 2026," Meta wrote in a blog post. Due to "limited" inventory, the company said it will pause plans to launch in the U.K., France, Italy and Canada early this year and concentrate on U.S. orders as it reassesses international availability...

Meta is one of several technology companies moving into the smart glasses market. Alphabet announced a $150 million partnership with Warby Parker in May and ChatGPT maker OpenAI is reportedly working on AI glasses with Apple.

Are they serious?

[MpVpRb]

"ability to send messages by writing with your finger on any surface"
This is one of the worst ideas ever
Do they even have ANY good ideas?

Re:

[bjoast]

You're missing the important question: Can I send messages by writing with my own pee in the snow?

Re:Are they serious?

[bjoast]

Do you normally wander around outdoors without any pants when it's minus 30 degrees?

m-maybe

Re:

[magusxxx]

Old joke:

Police: "Good news, we used DNA and found out it was your daughter's boyfriend. The bad news, it's your daughter's handwriting."

the facewear that he keeps in a jar by the door

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Genuinely curious about what proportion of remaining--well, let's be honest, surviving--Slashdot readers are excited to hear about Zuck's latest collaboration with the Ray-Ban corporation?

Re:

[TheMiddleRoad]

I'm excited by the potential of wearables, augmented reality, and virtual displays. So far, I've been disappointed by the reality, and my hopes for the near future are low. I also do not want every second of my day controlled by a lizard person.

Re:

[noshellswill]

Ray-Ban ? I don't fly a plane.

Re: the facewear that he keeps in a jar by the doo

[MachineShedFred]

That's ok. Whatever glasses you do wear,sun or corrective; probably made by a company owned by Luxottica just like Ray-Ban.

Re:

[larryjoe]

Genuinely curious about what proportion of remaining--well, let's be honest, surviving--Slashdot readers are excited to hear about Zuck's latest collaboration with the Ray-Ban corporation?

I'm potentially excited. Is the current offering of these glasses what I'd like to have? Not exactly. However, these glasses should be viewed in the context of the iPhone 1, which compared to the current iPhone had glaring deficiencies and understandable questions about adoption.

The two big technological advancements are the display, particularly the ability to view the display at a reasonable focal length, and the wristband for finger gestures. This means that the currently limited use cases are potent

Re:

[timeOday]

I am interested in live subtitles because of my hearing deficit. There are already special-purpose glasses for this, but I'm hoping the $100B that Meta has blown on AR/VR would make these more advanced - higher speech recognition rate, easer-to-read display, slimmer glasses with longer battery life. I don't know if any of that will be the case, but I look forward to an in-store demo whenever they get around to selling them in my area.

Creepy, don't want. What I do want:

[greytree]

Maybe someone wants this. For me, it's too creepy to wear in public.
But what I and many existing customers do want is an incrementally better Quest VR headset.

What would be so effing wrong with an annual slightly-improved Quest - less weight, more comfortable, more nausea-reducing features, higher resolution and refresh rate, better CPU/GPU ?

It won't waste billions like your lunatic multiverse and other obviously underthought ideas.
It will make people happy.

So, Zuck, just give us that eh ?

Re:

[Smonster]

I don’t think annual refresh is best from the consumer or business standpoint point. I think the Quest works more like console gaming system vs laptop/tower system. With a consistent platform people can be assured they games will just work without having to constantly upgrade their systems.

In that context a three to five year refresh makes sense. Faster than a typical console because it does so much more, but not so fast people who bought one feel like they wasted their money because it doesn’

'Unprecedented' Demand?

[srmalloy]

I wonder how much of this " 'unprecedented' demand " is Meta deliberately restricting production to whip up more interest by creating an artificial scarcity, and whether we'll quickly see an announcement that 'the first production run has sold out', and prospective buyers will have to wait until the second or subsequent production runs, fanning FOMO to drive more interest.

Re:

[RitchCraft]

"I wonder how much of this " 'unprecedented' demand " is Meta deliberately restricting production to whip up more interest by creating an artificial scarcity" - all of it.

Re:

[Carewolf]

Yeah, I known other products that nobody wanted. Unprecedented my ass. It is a tough competition, and this isnt even the least desirable product every.

High demand?

[Growlley]

more like they are violating numerous privacy laws in Europe

Re:

[codebase7]

US Privacy Rapists respect privacy laws since when? Oh right, never. Their entire business model is based on the concepts of Stockholm-syndrome suffering consumers and ignoring the word "no."

Transportation

[PleaseThink]

Phones have been able to navigate cities just fine for years. Are their glasses really not able to display those navigation directions and Facebook instead has to create and maintain their own customized navigation backend and user app? I would have expected full navigation across every area in Google/Apple Maps to be a day 1 feature. I didn't realize they were this far out of touch. Super shameful.

The summary left off the automotive features. Why are car companies planning to produce fully interactive

More like "unprecedented risk of getting arrested"

[gweihir]

Camouflaged cameras (and these count) are illegal in most of Europe and in quite a few other countries.

Also, "Teleprompter"? Is this for morons that want the AI to give them their lines?

unprecedented demand = no demand

[retrobunnies]

So tired of META marketing exagerating about their products

Great!

[oldgraybeard]

another meta product I don't need to care about. Thanks Zuck!

All this is really

[wakeboarder]

To keep investors interested, with new ideas so zuck can prove he's working on 'something'. The metaverse failed, the VR will keep people interested for a few more years and keep their dollars there. The sheer amount of dollars wasted at metal is staggering.

Hmmm

[Vegan Cyclist]

Unprecedented demand... ....so like...18 people want units, vs the 7 of the previous version?

I guess that's technically true.

AI is a Voyeur

[BrendaEM]

We are offering these glasses to sure no one has a private moment free from our wanking AI system! : P

due to "unprecedented" demand

[bsdetector101]

Do they believe their own BS ????