A high-end display will not be included in Meta’s AR glasses

According to a recent story from The Information, the high-end displays that were initially planned for Meta’s augmented reality glasses won’t be included in the first component of the product that it sells to the general public. The outlet has been informed by sources that the older glass lenses and display technology will be used in Meta’s AR glasses.

The first set of consumer-facing AR glasses from Meta, code-named Artemis, are scheduled for release in 2027, as The Verge revealed last year. Next year, the company plans to release its first set of AR glasses for internal testing and a small group of developers.

According to reports, Meta would apparently use Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS), an antiquated display technology that was first applied to movie projectors in the 1990s, in place of MicroLED screens for its consumer AR glasses. This “technology isn’t known for its brightness,” as The Information’s Wayne Ma remarked, which is crucial for AR goods because they must be able to project pictures into the actual world even in bright conditions.

Once its supply of parts runs out, Meta will discontinue producing the poorly received Quest Pro headset.

Additionally, the glass waveguide that Meta’s Artemis glasses are said to use, which lets light to pass through the glasses and into your eyes, may limit their field of vision to 50 degrees. The Information claims that silicon carbide, which has a 70-degree field of view, was Meta’s first choice. Given that the Magic Leap One and Microsoft’s second-generation HoloLens both have a 50-degree field of view, the decrease may make it more difficult for Meta’s consumer-oriented glasses to separate out from the crowd.

The Information reports that the first version of Meta’s glasses, intended only for developers and internal demos, will still come with the higher-end MicroLED displays and lenses with silicon carbide, allowing for a 70-degree field of view, despite the company’s plans to scale back on the technology it will include in its second-generation glasses.

For its first set of consumer AR glasses, Meta is lowering more features than just the displays. The “oval-shaped wireless puck” that comes with the device has some pieces that are being replaced, according to The Information, in order to “offload parts of the computing.” The puck will no longer include a lidar sensor, but will instead reportedly have a battery, a 5G modem, and a touchpad. It was intended to “detect the device’s surroundings and import 3D objects, including faces and bodies, into the digital world,” according to The Information.

The development of its poorly received Quest Pro headset is being scaled back as Meta struggles with rising costs as it explores more of the metaverse. The Information claims that once Meta runs out of parts, it will stop producing the headsets. As it turns its attention to its range of less expensive Quest headsets, including the impending Quest 3, it is also delaying its ambitions to manufacture a second-generation Quest Pro.