Meta Revives Plan for Smart Watch, Targets 2026 Launch
The Takeaway
- Meta revives smartwatch project, targeting 2026 launch with AI.
- Smartwatch revival follows strategy meeting at Zuckerberg’s home.
- Company streamlines AR/MR roadmap to avoid customer confusion.
Meta Platforms plans to release its first smartwatch in 2026, according to two people familiar with the matter. Meta’s plans come as other big tech companies, including Apple, OpenAI and Google, are stepping up their plans for new consumer devices.
The company has revived a previously shelved smartwatch project, now code-named Malibu 2, and intends to release it later this year with health-tracking features and a built-in Meta AI assistant. The watch will put Meta in direct competition with Apple, which has a popular line of smartwatches, as well as other companies such as Google.
Meta had ambitious plans for a smartwatch about five years ago, intending at one point to release three different camera-equipped versions, but it canceled the project in 2022 amid a broader pullback in spending at its hardware division, Reality Labs. The decision to revive the device followed a strategy meeting late last year at Zuckerberg’s home in Hawaii, where senior executives mapped out the company’s long-term product lineup, the people said.
Meta declined to comment.
The plans for its smartwatch release comes as Meta works to streamline its broader augmented reality and mixed reality road map. Meta currently has about four AR and MR glasses in development, and executives have grown concerned that launching too many devices in quick succession could confuse customers, one person said. As a result, leadership has been reassessing timelines.
In December, Reality Labs employees were told the company had delayed Phoenix, its MR glasses, until 2027.
This year, Meta is planning to release a new version of the Meta Ray-Ban Display, said one person. The new model is code-named Hypernova 2. The first version of these glasses, which have a miniature display built directly into one lens, went on sale in the U.S. last year priced at $799.
In January, the company announced it had paused international expansion to the U.K., France, Italy and Canada due to “unprecedented demand and limited inventory.”
Meanwhile, Meta is continuing to work on consumer-facing AR glasses code-named Artemis, long expected to be released in 2027, according to one person.
Artemis will represent a step up from Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses by adding the ability to display digital content on one lens. Wearers will be able to make phone calls using avatars, lifelike 3D digital representations of people that can mimic facial expressions and gestures in real time, the person said, adding that the glasses will have Meta’s voice-activated AI assistant baked in.
Zuckerberg has repeatedly expressed optimism that AI-powered glasses will define the next era of personal computing, calling them “the ideal form factor for AI” during his Connect keynote last year. He has argued that these devices—from today’s smart glasses to future AR models—will become the primary interface for personal AI.
Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have also found commercial success. The company’s partner, EssilorLuxottica, reported earlier this month that it had sold more than 7 million pairs in 2025, compared with 2 million from launch in 2023 through the end of 2024.