Orion is the name Meta gave to its first working pair of augmented reality (AR) glasses, a prototype unveiled by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg at the company's Connect conference on September 25, 2024. The device lays digital images - windows, video calls, games, life-size holograms of people - over a see-through view of the physical world, in a frame that resembles a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles. It is a development platform, not a product. Meta has never sold Orion and says consumers will not get it; the hardware serves as a reference design for a future line of consumer AR glasses and as a test bed for software. Display-equipped glasses are one of the few serious candidates for a screen beyond the phone, and Orion is the most detailed public specification of what such a screen might look like.

How the system works

Orion is three devices working as one. The glasses carry the display, cameras and sensors. A pocketable compute puckholds a high-capacity battery and a Meta-designed system-on-chip, and maintains the wireless link to both the glasses and the third component, an electromyography (EMG) wristband that reads electrical signals from the muscles of the forearm.

According to UploadVR, application logic, rendering and general processing run on the puck, which streams finished frames wirelessly to the glasses. Hand tracking, eye tracking and speech recognition happen on the glasses themselves. Moving the heavy computing off the face is what allowed Meta to quote a weight of 98 grams for the glasses. The trade-off is endurance: The Verge reported battery life of about two hours, according to Next Reality.

The display chain has two stages. Micro light-emitting diode (microLED) projectors hidden in the frame generate the image. Waveguides - thin transparent plates inside each lens - then carry that light across the lens and release it towards the eye. Meta made those plates from silicon carbide rather than glass. The choice is about refractive index: optical glass reaches roughly 1.8 to 1.9, while silicon carbide reaches about 2.6 to 2.7, which lets a single plate carry a wider range of angles. The result is a field of view of approximately 70 degrees measured diagonally, which Meta describes as the widest yet achieved in a glasses form factor. The Magic Leap 2 headset matches that figure, according to UploadVR, but not in eyewear. A magnesium frame keeps the optics aligned and spreads heat.

Meta Ray-Ban Display, the company's shipping display glasses, offers about 20 degrees in one eye. Snap's SPECS, on pre-order since September 2026, claims 51 degrees. At 70 degrees, content can be pinned to a wall or a table rather than floating as a notification card.

Input runs through four channels: voice, eye tracking, hand tracking and the wristband. The EMG band detects the muscle activity behind small finger movements, letting a wearer swipe, click and scroll with an arm resting at the side and hands out of camera view. The work traces to Meta's 2019 acquisition of CTRL-labs. Meta's assistant, Meta AI, runs on the device and, according to Meta, can interpret what the wearer is looking at; the company's own example is opening a refrigerator and asking for a recipe based on its contents.

Meta's Reality Labs division designs and operates the programme. Access has been limited to Meta employees and what the company called select external audiences. As of September 2026, Meta has announced no advertising format, ad product or measurement integration for Orion.

Origin and evolution

Meta dates the public commitment to 2019, when the company, then Facebook, said it was building AR glasses. At Facebook Connect on October 28, 2021, Zuckerberg gave the project a code name, Project Nazare, describing it as the company's first full AR glasses and saying the hardware had to fit displays, projectors, batteries, radios, custom chips and sensors into frames about 5mm thick. Meta said at the time that the glasses were still a few years out.

The consumer plan slipped. Vice, citing The Verge, reported that the glasses were originally meant to reach consumers by 2024 but were shelved in 2022 because production costs were too high. Orion became an internal development kit instead. When it appeared in September 2024, Meta wrote that its teams had believed the odds of success were below 10%, and Zuckerberg described the device as a time machine that showed the future early.

In January 2025, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Orion units would go to software developers in 2026 and that a lighter successor, code-named Artemis, could reach consumers as early as 2027. In March 2025, Meta published a technical series on the puck, custom silicon, microLED projectors and silicon carbide waveguides. Barry Silverstein, director of research science at Reality Labs, said Orion had proved silicon carbide viable and that suppliers on three continents were pursuing the material. Giuseppe Calafiore, the division's AR waveguides technical lead, attributed falling substrate costs to overcapacity built for electric vehicles.

The first commercial descendant arrived on September 17, 2025, when Meta launched Meta Ray-Ban Display at $799 with a single-eye display and the Meta Neural Band, a consumer version of the EMG wristband first shown with Orion.

Why it matters for the marketing community

Orion defines the upper bound of the canvas. A narrow monocular panel supports glanceable cards; a 70-degree binocular display supports objects anchored in a room, and PPC Land's analysis of waveguides notes that any advertising format for glasses depends on which of those surfaces ships at scale. Measurement groundwork already exists: the MRC and IAB augmented reality guidelines list wearables in scope, and the field-of-view rules behind them judge ads by the angle they occupy in a viewer's sight.

Data is the second reason. Camera glasses that understand what the wearer sees generate a new class of signal, a question PPC Land raised when it examined what Meta's smart glasses could mean for digital advertising in September 2024. Since then, Meta has begun using Meta AI interactions to personalise ads from December 16, 2025, a policy that covers conversations through its glasses with no opt-out. Meta has not said how that policy would apply to a future AR product.

Finally, advertising pays for the hardware. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Reality Labs posted a $5 billion operating losswhile advertising supplied 96.7% of Meta's revenue. The division lost a further $4.03 billion in the first quarter of 2026.

Limitations and disputes

Cost is the defining constraint. The widely cited figure of about $10,000 per unit originated with The Verge. Accounts of Meta's position differ: UploadVR wrote that Meta acknowledged the figure, while Business Insider reported that Meta declined to comment on it. Heise put the display at around 90% of manufacturing cost and estimated Reality Labs spending at almost $80 billion since late 2020.

Specifications are not settled either. Meta quotes 98 grams; several hands-on accounts cited 100 grams. More importantly, the headline field of view may not survive commercialisation. UploadVR reported in March 2025 that Meta's first consumer AR product was still expected to use glass rather than silicon carbide, and The Information has reported that Artemis will be sleeker but narrower than Orion. A buyer planning around 70 degrees may be planning around a prototype.

Endurance and tethering remain open problems, with a two-hour battery and a puck that must stay close by. Terminology has drawn criticism too. Meta staff have called the wristband a "neural" interface, a label Business Insider's reviewer noted wrongly implies it reads the brain; it reads muscle signals.

Privacy is the most contested area. Orion carries outward-facing cameras, and regulators are already testing Meta's shipping glasses. Hamburg's data protection authority concluded in September 2026 that Ray-Ban Meta glasses mainly create problems for bystanders, weeks after Meta confirmed that the camera stops working if the capture LED is destroyed.

Not the same as

Ray-Ban Meta glasses have cameras, speakers and Meta AI but no display; PPC Land covered their European AI rolloutin November 2024. Meta Ray-Ban Display is a shipping $799 product with a small monocular panel, which Meta opened to third-party developers in May 2026. Artemis is the reported code name for Orion's consumer successor; Meta has not confirmed its specification or date. Project Aria is a separate Meta research programme using sensor-equipped glasses without a display. Outside technology coverage the name is widely reused, from spacecraft to satellites.

Recent developments

Snap reported in May that SPECS was heading for a fall 2026 launch at about $2,500, then opened pre-orders on September 16, 2026 at $2,195, putting a priced true-AR product on sale ahead of Meta. Google has confirmed a display-equipped Android XR model for 2027.

At Meta, reporting in June 2026 by The Information, relayed by UploadVR, said the company would begin testing Artemis. Road to VR, citing an internal memo, reported a target of 10 million wearables sold in the second half of 2026. The supply chain Silverstein described is also forming: TechTimes reported on September 7, 2026 that Beijing start-up Avalon Holdings had raised more than $15 million for a silicon carbide waveguide plant aiming at 1 million units a year by 2027.

The company's finances frame the next step. Meta's second-quarter 2026 results showed advertising revenue of $59.36 billion and net income down 8% after legal and severance charges. Connect 2026 runs on September 23 and 24, with the keynote on September 23 and a new pair of glasses already teased. Whether Orion's successor appears on stage is, as of today, unconfirmed.

Timeline

  • 2019: Facebook publicly commits to building AR glasses and acquires CTRL-labs, the source of its EMG wristband research
  • October 28, 2021: Zuckerberg names Project Nazare at Facebook Connect, targeting frames about 5mm thick
  • 2022: Consumer launch plans shelved over production costs, according to The Verge
  • September 25, 2024: Meta unveils Orion at Connect with an approximately 70-degree field of view and a 98-gram frame
  • January 2025: Bloomberg reports Orion units will go to developers in 2026 and a consumer successor, Artemis, could follow in 2027
  • March 2025: Meta publishes technical detail on Orion's puck, silicon, microLED projectors and silicon carbide waveguides
  • September 17, 2025: Meta Ray-Ban Display launches at $799 with the Meta Neural Band
  • December 16, 2025: Meta begins using Meta AI interactions for ad personalisation
  • April 29, 2026: Meta reports a first-quarter Reality Labs operating loss of $4.03 billion
  • May 14, 2026: Meta opens Ray-Ban Display to third-party developers
  • June 2026: Reports say Meta will begin testing Artemis
  • September 10, 2026: Hamburg's data protection authority dates its report on Ray-Ban Meta glasses
  • September 16, 2026: Snap opens SPECS pre-orders at $2,195
  • September 23-24, 2026: Meta Connect 2026 scheduled in Menlo Park

Summary

Who. Meta Platforms, through its Reality Labs division, built Orion under chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Meta employees and selected external developers have access; consumers and advertisers do not.

What. Orion is a prototype pair of AR glasses with an approximately 70-degree field of view, silicon carbide waveguides, microLED projectors, a wireless compute puck and an EMG wristband. It costs a reported $10,000 per unit to make and is not for sale.

When. The project was named Nazare in October 2021, shelved as a consumer product in 2022 according to The Verge, and unveiled as Orion on September 25, 2024. A consumer successor, reportedly code-named Artemis, has been linked to 2027.

Where. Orion was shown at Meta's Connect conference in Menlo Park and is used internally and by selected developers. Its technology has reached market in narrower form through Meta Ray-Ban Display.

Why. Meta's aim is a wearable computer that could eventually displace the phone. For advertisers, Orion shows the size of a possible future canvas, the kind of visual and conversational data such devices collect, and the scale of losses advertising revenue is funding to get there.