Meta recently unveiled Oakley Meta HSTN, the company’s latest smart glasses created in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica. Now, data miner and serial leaker ‘Luna’ has obtained images of what appears to be Meta’s next pair of smart glasses, this time including a built-in display and wrist-worn controller.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in January that Meta was working on two new pairs of smart glasses: a sportier unit styled by Oakley—officially confirmed last month—and a high-end pair, codenamed ‘Hypernova’, which features a built-in display and gesture control thanks to the an electromyography (EMG) based wrist-worn controller.

Gurman’s report alleged that Hypernova is slated to debut sometime this year, priced between $1,000 and $1,400. With the discovery of images and tutorials by Luna, it’s possible Meta is in the final stages of prepping for launch.

Luna posted a number of images and videos on X, including what appears to be product photos of Meta Hypernova and its wristband controller, codenamed ‘Ceres’.

Image courtesy Luna

Ostensibly mined from recent Meta firmware releases, Luna says glasses will be named ‘Meta Celeste’.

Provided the ‘Meta Celeste’ naming scheme is final, as the image below suggests, it would likely mean Meta is pitching solo, and not cross-promoting like it does with Ray-Ban Meta or Oakley Meta glasses. Notably, ‘Celeste’ isn’t a name used by any of the French-Italian conglomerate’s various eyewear sub-brands.

Image courtesy Luna

As seen in action with Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype, the controller uses EMG to detect gestures, such as pinching and hand rotation for UI selection—something touch and voice input can’t really do that well. The version of the device below looks nearly identical, although it seems to be from a new tutorial.

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Image courtesy Luna

Among Luna’s trove of data, the leaker also appears to have found a number of videos and text from the device’s tutorial:

“Time for some magic! Did you know you can control your glasses display with your hands? Let’s learn how. When your band detects a gesture, you’ll feel a buzz on your wrist. Let’s start by selecting something. Quickly tap your index finger to your thumb and release.”

What’s more, Luna’s digging has come up with an alleged mini-game, called ‘Hypertrail’, that looks to make use of the device’s controller and single display for a Galaga-inspired game that could leverage the user’s physical location in some way.

Luna appears to be coming up with more supporting images, videos and text related to Hypernova and Ceres. We’ll update this piece with more info as it arrives.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Stephen Bard

    Even though the wristband EMG controller is an interesting new accessory, I doubt that most consumers will be willing to pay $1000-$1400 for glasses with that tiny monocular display.

    • Nevets

      Is it the tiny monocular display or the 70 degree one?

      • Stephen Bard

        This is the tiny monocular display of 20+º. Even when Meta eventually releases glasses similar to the prototype Orion several years from now, Meta has stated that the waveguide displays will have a FOV substantially narrower than the Orion's 70º and the price will be very high.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        It will be low FoV, but may be binocular, as this is easer for most people to adapt to. There are valid arguments why monocular may be preferable in many cases, mostly because it doesn't block all of your view, so at least one eye will see the approaching baseball instead of it being hidden by a few glowing dots.

    • Brian A

      Only youtubers will buy them…im fine with that.

      • The CAT

        given to them for free for a amazing review

  • Alex Hand me the Grapes

    100% chance those wrist controllers will make their way to a new Meta Quest VR device.

  • Yeshaya

    Is this the same general product as Orion?

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      TL;DR: the concept may be the same, but current display technology that fits into small frames and uses regular glass is much more limited regarding image size, color and FoV. The most impressive aspect of Orion was the large FoV in color, only achievable with new material that is still years away from affordable mass production.

      Hypernova is most likely more along the lines of existing smart glasses that use microLED projection with diffractive waveguides, showing a small image with ~25° FoV inside the glasses. They are usually monochrome, because that's what you can squeeze into a mostly normal sized glasses frame. They basically project a small image from the side to a section of glass that reflects the light into the eyes like a semi-transparent mirror.

      This is useful for notifications or simple graphics like maps, and there already exist a number of products like the Even Realities G1, shown below with a through-the-lens view of the display. (Images taken from a very detailed blog post by Karl Guttag kguttag_com/2024/08/18/even-realities-g1-minimalist-ar-glasses-with-integrated-prescription-lenses/ .) These are probably the most glasses looking smart glasses with displays, but rather dumb and lack cameras for image recognition, with only a few fixed functions like notifications, teleprompter and live translation when connected to a phone. Meta would most certainly bring the advanced AI based functions from their Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses, making them a lot more versatile

      What made Orion special was the huge FoV, achieved by using silicon carbide instead of glass/polymers for the lenses, a material with a high refractive index, and using only a single waveguide for all three colors. Most other prototypes use separate R, G and B projectors and waveguides, increasing volume and weight while reducing how much light can pass through. More Guttag: kguttag_com/2024/10/06/meta-orion-ar-glasses-pt-1-waveguides/

      Optical grade silicon carbide is very expensive to produce and currently even export restricted due to potential military use. It is not the only high index material used for waveguides, but Orion using silicon carbide came closest to a full color, large FoV see-through display in a compact form. This would allow for actual virtual objects blended into the view instead of mostly text based information, partly by putting all the required compute into an external unit. The rumored price of USD 1000-1400 for Hypernova plus EMG wrist band is a pretty clear indicator that these are not yet high FoV silicon carbide smart glasses, and instead a mix of Meta's existing USD 300-400+ smart glasses plus display tech similar to that used in the USD 600 Even Realities G1.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/24e960978d22cd1a08c27bf66721412137ae8a44a00680ddfdfdbc6493477377.jpg

  • Octogod

    This explains the mid-Summer refresh for Quest.

  • Brian A

    My rayban metas were garbage. They stopped charging after 6 days, along with blown speaker. Rayban was nice enough to offer 50% refund. They sent label to return, i returned with their label, they then told me they would ship them back after removing lesnses, so i could then send back to them. Yes…you read that correctly. After a month of fighting them, i let them know i was doing charge back. Then they angrily refunded me. Rayban is the worst run company ive ever seen in my life. Its staggering how bad service is.

    • nigelnorris

      What does your experience with Ray Ban have to do with the upcoming glasses??

  • The CAT

    Pile of more Rubbish, make better VR headsets !