Metna boosts its efforts in the field of smart glasses
Meta and eyewear company EssilorLuxottica plan to work together on smart glasses into the next decade, announcing a long-term agreement to extend a partnership that began in 2019 and has resulted in two generations of Ray-Ban smart glasses.
Essilor Luxottica has a near monopoly on the eyewear market worldwide, and its brands, such as Ray-Ban and Oakley, are among the most recognizable on the planet.
“I’m proud to be working with Essilor Luxottica, and excited about the long-term roadmap we have in place,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “We have the opportunity to transform glasses into the next major technology platform and make them trendy in the process.”
Google was reportedly in talks with Essilor Luxottica earlier this year to manufacture its Gemini AI smart glasses, though Essilor Luxottica appears to have decided to stick with Meta.
Ray-Ban smart glasses are the best-selling smart glasses, and Meta executives have said on multiple occasions that the company is selling them faster than it can make them.
Meta's upcoming smart glasses with a head-up display (HUD), expected to launch in 2025, will not carry Ray-Ban branding because Essilor Luxottica rejected the design thickness needed to house the display system, according to a report from The Information.
Less than a week later, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta was exploring acquiring a 5 percent stake in Essilor Luxottica, which could help it exert influence over the company's decision-making process regarding future smart glasses.
Mark Zuckerberg's comments over the past year suggest that Meta is in the market for screenless smart glasses for a very long time, given the great potential of Meta's AI assistant powered by the Llama series of large language models.
Zuckerberg said he originally expected smart glasses would need a screen to be useful, though he now believes things have changed with the advent of large language models.
AR glasses with a head-up display (HUD) are supposed to arrive as a high-quality product, not just as alternatives to audio smart glasses.
It's not clear if Meta's potential investment and the new agreement with Essilor Luxottica will be enough to convince Essilor Luxottica to put its branding on these massive, screen-based glasses, or if it could take years of miniaturization to get to that point.
Essilor Luxottica owns other major brands, such as Oakley, and has licensing agreements with luxury brands, including Versace, Prada, Chanel and others.
Meta is planning to hold its Meta Connect conference next week, and the company reportedly won't be launching a new glasses product this year, though it is expected to show off a high-priced, fully-integrated prototype of true AR glasses as an example of the kind of product the company hopes to one day offer to consumers.