This week, I became one of the few people outside Meta to try its new “Orion” augmented reality glasses. The product is a technological marvel, layering computing on top of the real world in a lightweight wearable device. It’s so good — bright, smart, and fast — it makes mainstream augmented reality feel real for the first time. And while still internal to Meta, a broader release seems inevitable.
I put on Orion for about 30 minutes at Meta’s Menlo Park headquarters. The device felt like a normal pair of glasses, albeit with a bit more bulk and weight than usual. Then the display came on.