Is the Next Meta Smartphone the Puck that Comes with the Orion?

In late September 2024, Meta unveiled a prototype of the Orion, their new augmented reality (AR) glasses. Currently, all that AR power lies inside a compute puck, which must be carried separately. The compute puck communicates with the AR glasses to provide the immersive experience. When I saw it, I instantly thought, "Meta is going to make a run at making another smartphone!"

While I do think Meta's Orion AR glasses and similar products have the potential to eventually replace the smartphones all together, I think that's a ways off. In the near term, there is likely a middle ground that will have to exist. And in that space, the Meta's compute puck is well positioned to be a smartphone that communicates with the Orion AR glasses.

Meta had a breakout success with the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. All it took was its solid style from Ray-Ban and extremely simple features including absolutely NO visual AR capabilities, and some small cameras to take pictures, and small microphones and speakers to take calls, send texts, and ask questions. I'm intrigued the most by the opening these glasses have created in the market coupled with full-blown AR glasses that come with a companion compute puck. It just makes sense that the next step is Meta changing that compute puck into a smartphone.

The Legacy of the Facebook Phone

Meta’s foray into the smartphone market was encapsulated in its 2013 launch of the HTC First, marketed as the “Facebook phone.” This device came preloaded with Facebook Home, a user interface that prioritized social media integration. I remember watching the full presentation by Zuck and the team with great interest when it happened. 

Unfortunately, the project faltered, leading to a swift exit from the smartphone space. Critics pointed to the phone’s lack of unique features, poor hardware, and the misconception that users wanted a phone exclusively tailored to social media. In a lot of ways, it strongly reminds me of Apple’s first failed attempt at a phone, which was a collaboration with Motorola to create the Rokr. It’s fair to say Apple learned a lot since then! 

Fast forward to today and separating itself from the mistakes of their first attempt at a phone, the Meta smartphone could enable an entirely new way for users to interact with their environment. It could blend AR experiences with a dedicated phone to offload tasks and for the interactions that don’t make sense through AR glasses quite yet, like editing photos, content creation, and more.

Meta's Smartphone: A Need for Intensive Compute Power

The demands of AR technology are substantial. Real-time image processing, spatial mapping, edge computing, on device and cloud AI, a continuous connection to the internet, and a host of interactive features require significant computational resources and power. With today’s technological capabilities, it’s impossible to cram all that into just the Orion glasses, let alone manage the heat created. Thus, there's a need to offload many of the tasks to something more powerful, yet physically close to the glasses. By utilizing a Meta smartphone, these tasks could be offloaded from the Orion glasses themselves, making the device lighter and more user-friendly while providing the necessary power to deliver a seamless AR experience, and access to an auxiliary screen.
This ambition comes with its own set of challenges.

On top of Meta offering their own app store and countless other software and services, they would also need to ensure robust connectivity and minimal latency to avoid a disjointed user experience. Since this device would need to act almost like a miniaturized server, it makes sense to just make it a phone. If successful, this could redefine how mobile devices are perceived—shifting from handheld cell phones to phones that can communicate with AR wearables, and then, to strictly AR wearables with mobile needs built-in.

Tensions with Other Platforms: A Motivating Factor

Meta’s ongoing struggles with Apple, and to a lesser extent Google, also lend weight to the argument for pursuing their own mobile device. Over the years, Apple has implemented increasingly stringent regulations on app developers, impacting Meta’s ability to operate effectively within the iOS ecosystem. In 2020, Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency curtailed Meta’s advertising capabilities, forcing the company to rethink its approach to user data and engagement.

With Apple maintaining tight control over the app ecosystem and definitely their hardware, creating an independent computing solution could offer Meta greater freedom. Google, Samsung, and other phone makers don’t allow the full access Meta would need/want for a seamless and integrated AR and smartphone experience either. By developing its own ecosystem around not only the Orion AR glasses, but also the compute puck as a smartphone, Meta could potentially reduce its reliance on third-party platforms while providing a more integrated experience for users. This strategic move might also allow Meta to reclaim some of the market influence it lost with the failure of the Facebook phone, and potentially create an actual competitor to challenge the current duopoly that exists in the US mobile market. 

A New Meta Smartphone Paradigm?

If Meta continues to develop the Orion prototype and decides to transform the puck into a smartphone, the company would be potentially poised to revolutionize mobile technology. Meta gets the best of both worlds: a device that can handle the offloaded tasks that the AR glasses need and a mobile device that one can use when wearing the glasses isn't an option, appropriate or the right tool. This two device bridge (glasses and smartphone) can last as long as a transition to full AR might take. 

While there are still hurdles to overcome—particularly in terms of software compatibility, user adoption, marketing, and consumers worries about Meta having even more access to their private data—there’s no denying that the compute puck in the shape of a smartphone would represent an ambitious step forward. If Meta can successfully parley the popularity of the current Ray-Ban Meta Glasses into a dual device combo with immersive capabilities of AR and the familiar and robust functionality of a cell phone, it may just find the success that eluded it in its earlier smartphone endeavors. 

Author's Note: The photo above was generated using Meta's AI tool.