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Still kinda dorky looking but 10x better than what Snap unveiled last week.[^1] Software looks miles ahead of the AR glasses competition as well. Nice job FB en

Still kinda dorky looking but 10x better than what Snap unveiled last week.[^1] Software looks miles ahead of the AR glasses competition as well. Nice job FB engineers...keep cooking! [^1]: https://www.spectacles.com/ https://www.spectacles.com/

jlund-molfese 2y ago
I was going to say that Snap's offering was probably cheaper or designed for mass marketing because their page looks like something you could actually buy. But that isn't the case! Snap will only rent them to you at $1200/year [0], can't imagine what the BOM is like for either of these products. [0] https://www.spectacles.com/lens-studio https://www.spectacles.com/lens-studio
- prettymuchnoone 2y ago
  don't know about spectacles but the verge's article about it quote someone saying it's about 10k to make this: > As Meta’s executives retell it, the decision to shelve Orion mostly came down to the device’s astronomical cost to build, which is in the ballpark of $10,000 per unit. Most of that cost is due to how difficult and expensive it is to reliably manufacture the silicon carbide lenses. When it started designing Orion, Meta expected the material to become more commonly used across the industry and therefore cheaper, but that didn’t happen.
- homefree 2y ago
  Snap's design is really awful looking - to the point I can't see how it doesn't just damage the brand. Plus Snap's core business is a mess I don't see how they could really compete with Meta on this they'll run out of money first. It's cool to see Meta's continued work/focus in this space - a polished internal prototype is probably the right place for this hardware.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    > Plus Snap's core business is a mess Snap is worth $20B, Meta is worth $1.5T. No comparison.
    - tourmalinetaco 2y ago
      Money isn’t everything, one look at the Metaverse or Sony’s Concord fiasco tells you all you need to know.
      - sleepybrett 2y ago
        Money IS everything. It says something that sony has the ability to fail like that and continue. Just like FB failed at the metaverse after doubling and tripling down about how it was the future of the company before it just kinda stopped talking about it. Companies with this much cash can take risks and fail with little to no concequences, smaller companies cannot and thus often choose not compete or just HOPE that they get bought by one of these near monopolies.
        jerska 2y ago
        Using caps doesn’t make this affirmation any more true. While you’re correct that it does massively help, money is only a resource, which you can use to trade for a lot of things, but there are people, things and abstract concepts that money can’t buy.
        shermantanktop 2y ago
        Money buys recovery from failure, which is a double-edged sword. It doesn't buy the ability to learn the right lessons, and eventually the money teaches that failure doesn't really matter, because there's always another chance to get it right. Which is why it is probably better to be just constrained enough financially that your first attempt really matters to your bottom line, but have enough to be able to pull it off.
      - homefree 2y ago
        Sure, but it's a factor and it's not like Snap is doing great otherwise. Startups have less money, but invent new fields because of the differentiated advantage that comes from being smaller and faster (among other things). This is Snap competing in the same arena against Zuckerberg who is a lot better capitalized and better at it. It'd be one thing to do if Snap was otherwise firing on all cylinders and trying to expand into the platform of the future, but it seems like they never recovered from Apple's ATT and are blowing money on passion projects that are not competitive. What do I know? I'm just an outsider, but I'd buy Meta and sell Snap. If you disagree, the other direction is probably a lot more profitable if you're right.
wongarsu 2y ago
Aesthetically I prefer the visor look of the HoloLens. However if you want to appeal to people outside a work environment something that looks like actual glasses is the way forwards. This looks like it still has a couple of years until it reaches that goal, but it seems like Zuckerberg's ambition towards XR will pay off eventually
- lrivers 2y ago
  Boy, not from the outside, though. There was a guy wearing one on my last flight and it’s ugly and it’s super weird to see someone “doing stuff”. All the hand waving and stuff. I can’t imagine wearing one in public. But I’m old
  - crooked-v 2y ago
    The Apple Vision Pro front screen feels like an initial clunky attempt at trying to make this easier by giving an obvious indicator when somebody is off in their own world vs actually looking at you... though as UX design it's a good 10 years ahead of the hardware, since nobody's ever going to be casually wearing AVP in a coffee shop. VRChat, of all things, has some interesting experimentation going on in this space. For example, there are avatars that will link up with your other SteamVR apps to show a placeholder screen or other indicator on the avatar when you have an overlay floating window active that's totally separate from VRChat.
pj_mukh 2y ago
FWIW, Orion is not for sale. Exciting work! It seems like the main problems are now in miniaturizing electronics (and not optics) into a Ray-Ban form factor? Super cool.
- throwup238 2y ago
  > FWIW, Orion is not for sale. Neither is Snap's offering. They're renting out Devkits.
  - pj_mukh 2y ago
    Right, though publicly available for $99/mo. With Orion, no devkits publicly available either.
boo-ga-ga 2y ago
Snap's device doesn't need a separate compute device, and I'm sure it's pretty trivial to make it smaller with such. So I would not judge based on this. And anyway, I'm very glad to see Meta pushing towards AR, this is the good example of a company with bold vision.
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  The thickness is only part of the design, and the only justifiable part of it. The actual design is far more reminiscent of a cheap children’s toy than a high-end “revolutionary” piece of tech.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    I think that chunkiness is kind of an aesthetic that's in right now actually, if you look at a lot of popular media there's definitely some "birth control glasses" that are considered on trend. That being said I'm about the furthest thing from a fashion critic - only Kirkland Signature touches this body.
- brrrrrm 2y ago
  Any citations for that? Id have thought the goofy width of spectacles was related to the screen projection
- bartvk 2y ago
  But _why_ are you glad to see Meta pushing towards AR? Genuine question.
  - nilamo 2y ago
    Because they have money, and don't often abandon projects.
  - stronglikedan 2y ago
    They innovate. Look what Quest did for VR.
zombiwoof 2y ago
The tech industry is so focused on strapping technology to our faces
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
Ya I don't know why they don't make the specs looks like normal specs. For example the master stroke of the Tesla Model S was to make it look like a normal car. The same with these devices. If they look normal and work differently they will get far more users.
- grandma_tea 2y ago
  I dunno, it seems pretty clear to me that's what they're trying to do.
mgh2 2y ago
Still looks ugly. The Ray Band was a success due to the aesthetic appeal of sunglass users (aviators, beach jocks look cool). Pushing normal glasses without making the subject look like dorks (nerds are unattractive) or "glassholes" (Google glass tech bros) will be a challenge.
- dcchambers 2y ago
  I think it's clear that the end design goal IS Ray-Ban form factor. The tech just isn't there yet, but they sure are getting close.

jlund-molfese 2y ago

I was going to say that Snap's offering was probably cheaper or designed for mass marketing because their page looks like something you could actually buy. But that isn't the case! Snap will only rent them to you at $1200/year [0], can't imagine what the BOM is like for either of these products. [0] https://www.spectacles.com/lens-studio https://www.spectacles.com/lens-studio

prettymuchnoone 2y ago
don't know about spectacles but the verge's article about it quote someone saying it's about 10k to make this: > As Meta’s executives retell it, the decision to shelve Orion mostly came down to the device’s astronomical cost to build, which is in the ballpark of $10,000 per unit. Most of that cost is due to how difficult and expensive it is to reliably manufacture the silicon carbide lenses. When it started designing Orion, Meta expected the material to become more commonly used across the industry and therefore cheaper, but that didn’t happen.
homefree 2y ago
Snap's design is really awful looking - to the point I can't see how it doesn't just damage the brand. Plus Snap's core business is a mess I don't see how they could really compete with Meta on this they'll run out of money first. It's cool to see Meta's continued work/focus in this space - a polished internal prototype is probably the right place for this hardware.
- bhouston 2y ago
  > Plus Snap's core business is a mess Snap is worth $20B, Meta is worth $1.5T. No comparison.
  - tourmalinetaco 2y ago
    Money isn’t everything, one look at the Metaverse or Sony’s Concord fiasco tells you all you need to know.
    - sleepybrett 2y ago
      Money IS everything. It says something that sony has the ability to fail like that and continue. Just like FB failed at the metaverse after doubling and tripling down about how it was the future of the company before it just kinda stopped talking about it. Companies with this much cash can take risks and fail with little to no concequences, smaller companies cannot and thus often choose not compete or just HOPE that they get bought by one of these near monopolies.
      - jerska 2y ago
        Using caps doesn’t make this affirmation any more true. While you’re correct that it does massively help, money is only a resource, which you can use to trade for a lot of things, but there are people, things and abstract concepts that money can’t buy.
        shermantanktop 2y ago
        Money buys recovery from failure, which is a double-edged sword. It doesn't buy the ability to learn the right lessons, and eventually the money teaches that failure doesn't really matter, because there's always another chance to get it right. Which is why it is probably better to be just constrained enough financially that your first attempt really matters to your bottom line, but have enough to be able to pull it off.
    - homefree 2y ago
      Sure, but it's a factor and it's not like Snap is doing great otherwise. Startups have less money, but invent new fields because of the differentiated advantage that comes from being smaller and faster (among other things). This is Snap competing in the same arena against Zuckerberg who is a lot better capitalized and better at it. It'd be one thing to do if Snap was otherwise firing on all cylinders and trying to expand into the platform of the future, but it seems like they never recovered from Apple's ATT and are blowing money on passion projects that are not competitive. What do I know? I'm just an outsider, but I'd buy Meta and sell Snap. If you disagree, the other direction is probably a lot more profitable if you're right.

wongarsu 2y ago

Aesthetically I prefer the visor look of the HoloLens. However if you want to appeal to people outside a work environment something that looks like actual glasses is the way forwards. This looks like it still has a couple of years until it reaches that goal, but it seems like Zuckerberg's ambition towards XR will pay off eventually

lrivers 2y ago
Boy, not from the outside, though. There was a guy wearing one on my last flight and it’s ugly and it’s super weird to see someone “doing stuff”. All the hand waving and stuff. I can’t imagine wearing one in public. But I’m old
- crooked-v 2y ago
  The Apple Vision Pro front screen feels like an initial clunky attempt at trying to make this easier by giving an obvious indicator when somebody is off in their own world vs actually looking at you... though as UX design it's a good 10 years ahead of the hardware, since nobody's ever going to be casually wearing AVP in a coffee shop. VRChat, of all things, has some interesting experimentation going on in this space. For example, there are avatars that will link up with your other SteamVR apps to show a placeholder screen or other indicator on the avatar when you have an overlay floating window active that's totally separate from VRChat.

pj_mukh 2y ago

FWIW, Orion is not for sale. Exciting work! It seems like the main problems are now in miniaturizing electronics (and not optics) into a Ray-Ban form factor? Super cool.

throwup238 2y ago
> FWIW, Orion is not for sale. Neither is Snap's offering. They're renting out Devkits.
- pj_mukh 2y ago
  Right, though publicly available for $99/mo. With Orion, no devkits publicly available either.

boo-ga-ga 2y ago

Snap's device doesn't need a separate compute device, and I'm sure it's pretty trivial to make it smaller with such. So I would not judge based on this. And anyway, I'm very glad to see Meta pushing towards AR, this is the good example of a company with bold vision.

tourmalinetaco 2y ago
The thickness is only part of the design, and the only justifiable part of it. The actual design is far more reminiscent of a cheap children’s toy than a high-end “revolutionary” piece of tech.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  I think that chunkiness is kind of an aesthetic that's in right now actually, if you look at a lot of popular media there's definitely some "birth control glasses" that are considered on trend. That being said I'm about the furthest thing from a fashion critic - only Kirkland Signature touches this body.
brrrrrm 2y ago
Any citations for that? Id have thought the goofy width of spectacles was related to the screen projection
bartvk 2y ago
But _why_ are you glad to see Meta pushing towards AR? Genuine question.
- nilamo 2y ago
  Because they have money, and don't often abandon projects.
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  They innovate. Look what Quest did for VR.

zombiwoof 2y ago

The tech industry is so focused on strapping technology to our faces

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

Ya I don't know why they don't make the specs looks like normal specs. For example the master stroke of the Tesla Model S was to make it look like a normal car. The same with these devices. If they look normal and work differently they will get far more users.

grandma_tea 2y ago
I dunno, it seems pretty clear to me that's what they're trying to do.

mgh2 2y ago

Still looks ugly. The Ray Band was a success due to the aesthetic appeal of sunglass users (aviators, beach jocks look cool). Pushing normal glasses without making the subject look like dorks (nerds are unattractive) or "glassholes" (Google glass tech bros) will be a challenge.

dcchambers 2y ago
I think it's clear that the end design goal IS Ray-Ban form factor. The tech just isn't there yet, but they sure are getting close.