A massive leak has seemingly outlined the capabilities of the forthcoming Meta smart glasses, as well as hinting at a release in the near future.
Established leaker Luna (via Tom’s Hardware) has posted images and videos of Meta’s forthcoming wearable, formerly known as Hypernova, but now seemingly being referred to internally as the Meta Celeste.
Accompanying these compact smart glasses will be the Ceres wristbands, which will enable you to interact with the augmented reality depicted in the glasses.
Also depicted is a UI element towards the bottom right that will surface information such as apps, notifications, and any images taken on the Celeste’s built-in camera.
The leaker also scraped some text from a related tutorial video, which offer instruction on how to control the display with your hands. “When your band detects a gesture, you’ll feel a buzz on your wrist,” it says. “Let’s start by selecting something. Quickly tap your index finger to your thumb and release.”
One leaked tutorial video shows the gesture recognition system in operation.
While these Ceres bands may still ship as part of the Meta Celeste package, it seems you’ll also be able to control the glasses directly using a touch sensitive area on the right arm near the temple – something that’s shown in another leaked video.
Another part of this sizeable info-dump is a new Meta AR game known as Hypertrail, which utilises the user’s location and appears to have been inspired by the arcade classic Galaga.
Given the sheer wealth of materials in this leak, it seems to suggest that a full launch of Meta’s ambitious AR glasses project could be almost ready to roll. Reports suggest that we’ll be seeing them before the year is out.
Google’s Android XR is also tipped to launch this year, with a similarly ambitious range of AR capabilities crammed into a similarly compact set of glasses.
We’ve previously gone hands-on with some other promising AR projects, including the TCL RayNeo Air 3S, the Oppo Air Glass 3. But in terms of fully fledged AR experiences that might one day replace your phone, it’s Meta and Google (with the help of Samsung) that appear to be leading the way.
This latest leak would suggest that Meta might have stolen a march on its rival when it comes to launch timing, though it may just be that Google has managed to play its AR cards closer to its virtual chest.
