Recently, the tech world has been abuzz with news, and one of the most impressive events was undoubtedly the Meta Connect at the end of September 2024, where Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the most advanced AR glasses to date, reportedly costing $10,000 each. While the products and solutions showcased at the event are still in the early stages, they did not give the impression of being unrealistic. They all share one common appeal: even for ordinary users who are not particularly interested in cutting-edge technology, the future development trajectory painted by these tech giants is clear—our future will be marked by autonomous driving, embodied intelligence, and AR glasses.
New Tech Releases: The Key to Attention and Industry Direction
When talking about AR glasses, many people might trace the history back to Google Glass, released in 2012. Since then, well-known products like HoloLens and Magic Leap have emerged, following a rollercoaster path over more than a decade.
Now, Meta’s Orion, which debuted at Meta Connect 2024, showcases the new heights that AR glasses can reach. Earlier, Meta revealed its product strategy, which included a lightweight AR glasses line in addition to VR headsets, and this product has now taken shape, making a powerful impact.
Meta’s entry has caused a huge stir within and outside the industry. Global tech media outlets have scrambled to report on the event, making more ordinary consumers aware of the advancements in AR technology. Orion has also sent positive signals to the capital market, as Meta’s stock price surged after the Meta Connect 2024 conference and reached a historic high of $1.51 trillion in early October 2024.
For industry professionals, this news is even more exciting. Many expressed strong confidence in Orion’s potential and optimism about the convergence of VR and AR, with some eager to become early content developers for Orion. Industry giants, including NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang, praised the product’s impressive display, tracking, and color performance, while Hugo Barra, former VP of Global at Xiaomi, compared the experience to the first time using Waymo or Tesla’s autonomous driving, hinting at a bright future ahead.
Zuckerberg noted that while Orion is a forward-looking device, it will initially be made available to select developers. From a hardware standpoint, Orion is already highly developed, and Meta is actively advancing the commercialization of AR glasses, with an optimistic forecast that this will happen within three years.
For emerging industries like XR, tech giants wield significant influence, with one of their key advantages being the vast resources they can invest compared to startups. As a result, their technology choices often point to the future direction of the industry, which serves as a valuable reference for XR startups and the entire industry.
Take, for example, Apple’s release of its first MR headset, Vision Pro, last year. Its introduction defined a new set of standards for VST MR products, including spatial video, hand-eye coordination interactions, the Micro-OLED + Pancake design, and spatial computing. These have become the technological and product directions for many startups and even large tech giants.
Orion’s global media attention can be attributed to Meta’s role as a trendsetter in the AR glasses market. Similarly, it was Meta’s push that helped establish the legitimacy of standalone VR headsets.
Meta’s Vision for AR Glasses: The Road Ahead
Before VR became mainstream, it was tightly associated with PCs due to the need for their computational power. However, this limited VR’s application, such as requiring a high-performance PC and wired connections. Meta saw this issue and pushed for the transformation of VR from PC-based to standalone devices. In 2018, it released the first standalone VR product, the Oculus Go, which attracted more consumer attention due to its affordable price and large content library built on the Gear VR platform.
The true breakthrough in standalone VR headsets came in May 2019 with the release of the Quest 1, a 6DoF VR headset that not only eliminated the need for a PC and complex wiring but also provided a product experience comparable to PC VR. With Meta leading the way, many companies followed suit, making standalone VR headsets the dominant form of VR headsets.
Now, Meta has released its first true AR glasses, Orion. What product and technology trends can we expect to see from this new development?
Orion Core: Maximizing Performance in a Lightweight Design
The development of AR over the past decade has seen manufacturers feeling their way through the market, with various products emerging. However, with the appearance of Orion, the direction may have become clearer, particularly for the critical optical display component. Orion has set a new standard for lightweight AR glasses, based on the combination of Micro-LED and silicon carbide optical waveguides.
Lightweight design is crucial for consumer-grade AR glasses. As a wearable device, the glasses need to be lightweight and portable to ensure that users can wear them for extended periods. Last year, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses ignited the market, with sales reportedly exceeding 1 million units. Third-party analysis suggests that the success of this product can be attributed to three key factors: a restrained set of features, a lightweight design, and the addition of AI functionality.
In the era of AR glasses, the introduction of optical displays has further complicated the hardware system. The challenge for AR manufacturers is how to incorporate display modules while maintaining the wearable characteristics of glasses.
As for the Orion product, it integrates dual-color displays, seven cameras and sensors for SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) and eye-tracking, all while keeping the product weight under 100g. The design is more akin to regular glasses compared to the bulky designs of Magic Leap and HoloLens, making a strong impression overall.
Meta revealed that Orion is a prime example of miniaturization. The team worked hard to reduce its weight, such as offloading some computation tasks to external units and extensively using magnesium-aluminum alloys. Orion also uses a Micro-LED and silicon carbide diffraction waveguide optical solution, which plays a critical role in its lightweight design.
Micro-LED: The Ideal Technology for AR Glasses
The key display technologies for AR glasses include Micro-LED, LCoS, LBS, and DLP. Currently, LBS, LCoS, and DLP devices typically have a volume of over 1cc, whereas the latest Micro-LED light engines have shrunk to just 0.15cc (roughly the size of a red bean) and weigh only 0.3g.
The compact size of Micro-LED enables it to be integrated into the arms of the glasses, making the product appear similar to regular glasses. In contrast, other technologies tend to result in larger, more cumbersome designs, often forcing AR glasses to take on the appearance of oversized sunglasses or goggles, making them less convenient for daily use.
Beyond size, Micro-LED also offers significant advantages in brightness, power consumption, and lifespan. For AR glasses to be usable in outdoor environments, the required brightness must reach at least 2000-3000 nits. Micro-LED light modules can achieve up to 6000 nits, far exceeding this standard. Additionally, thanks to pixel-level independent control, Micro-LED offers superior power consumption compared to other technologies under similar conditions. Meta’s choice of Micro-LED for Orion further affirms this technology’s capabilities.
Another core highlight of Orion is the use of silicon carbide. Compared to traditional resin and glass materials, silicon carbide has a refractive index of 2.6, which is essential for achieving a wide field of view (FoV). Furthermore, silicon carbide waveguides offer advantages in terms of thermal stability, hardness, and weight, although their high cost remains a challenge for large-scale applications. Following Orion’s release, many domestic companies have begun researching and exploring the use of silicon carbide materials.
The AI + AR Wave: JBD Enlightened as the New Symbol
As previously mentioned, Meta’s decision to use Micro-LED and silicon carbide waveguide technology in Orion reflects an inevitable choice driven by the need for lightweight design. This approach has now become a consensus among manufacturers both domestically and internationally.
Years ago, AR glasses were often associated with bulky headset forms, such as the HoloLens. However, in the past year, consumer-grade AR glasses have collectively slimmed down, such as the MYVU series by Meizu, OPPO Air Glass 3, and Even Realities G1, which emphasize style and wearability. The Even Realities G1 even reduced the weight of AR glasses to under 40g. This trend towards ultra-lightweight devices indicates that Micro-LED may be the key to future AR glasses development.
Thanks to the superiority of Micro-LED performance indicators, many technology giants and start-up companies have begun to pay attention to this track in recent years, such as Apple as early as 2014 has acquired Micro-LED manufacturer Luxvue, and Meta, Snap, Samsung, LG, etc., have rich patented technology reserves. Yole Group data pointed out that in recent years, the number of Micro-LED patents issued worldwide has shown an exponential growth trend, with more than 11,000 new patents in the years from 2021 to 2023.
In conclusion, Micro-LED is the ideal technology for AR glasses, and with JBD leading the industry in Micro-LED technology, we are witnessing a shift toward more practical and lightweight devices. The convergence of AR and AI is set to revolutionize our lives, and the path is being paved by these innovations.
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