Meta Reportedly Abandons Plan to Release First AR Glasses by 2024
Facebook's parent company Meta has walked back its plan to release its first AR glasses commercially in 2024, a report says.
Facebook parent company Meta is reportedly walking back its plan to release its first set of AR glasses commercially in 2024.
Instead, those glasses, codenamed Nazare, will be used as demonstration products, with the software team pivoting to building a software development kit to help developers build apps for Meta glasses, according to a report Thursday by The Information.
Meta will prioritize the second AR glasses currently being developed, codenamed Artemis, for a commercial release, but it's unclear when they would be market-ready, the report added.
The shift is part of a larger effort to scale back AR/VR projects and new product plans as Meta sees reduced revenue growth. The Portal family of smart displays, which has seen boosted sales during the pandemic, has been repositioned as business products, and won't release another consumer-oriented Portal device.
The shakeup has also led Meta to cancel its much-rumored smartwatch with two cameras, codenamed Milan, as Bloomberg originally reported. While Meta had been planning to release another two versions of the watch (codenames Kyoto and Paris) over the following years, it's unclear if these have also been scrapped.
Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.