Can Meta Make Wearable Technology Happen?
This week, everyone will be talking about Meta’s new store and its Ray-Ban smart glasses, plus the selloff in tech stocks that has hurt the prospects of fashion’s unicorns.
Very Meta
- Facebook parent Meta is opening its first physical store near San Francisco on May 9
- The store will feature Meta products, including wearables such as AR glasses
- Last week, Mark Zuckerberg met with executives from Italian fashion brands, including Salvatore Ferragamo and Moncler
Wearable technology that consumers find both useful and fashionable has frustrated even the biggest technology and fashion companies. The market is littered with failed attempts at true augmented reality via spectacles or headsets. The most notable success, the Apple Watch, is a hit. But the ability to transfer some iPhone capabilities to users’ wrists is hardly the virtual utopia fashion futurists dream of.
Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players are giving it another go, though. Last week Snap demoed augmented reality shopping tools, including a realistic virtual try-on service, exactly the sort of consumer-friendly application that could convince some to take the leap into wearing the company’s Spectacles. And Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses appear to be one of the flagship products at the company’s first store, which opens Monday. The glasses, which allow the wearer to take photos, shoot videos, stream music and send texts, have been on the market since September. They remain a niche product, but Meta clearly has big ambitions in the category. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg was spotted in Italy meeting with fashion executives, including the CEO of Ray-Ban owner EssilorLuxottica, but also the leadership of a slew of big luxury brands. Zuckerberg teased a new wearable product, which he described as a “neural interface EMG wristband that will eventually let you control your glasses and other devices.”
The Bottom Line: Snap and Meta have avoided the biggest misstep of past generations of wearables by creating products that, to the casual observer, look like appealing analog products already on the market. Now, they must roll out features that are fun and useful enough to convince consumers that they need to wear a camera on their head in addition to a smartphone on their wrist.