Meta just showed off a pair of smart glasses that blend virtual reality with the actual world, and the internet responded with its usual measured take: a mixture of "shut up and take my money" and "absolutely not, I've seen this movie." The device, which the company has been teasing under various names for what feels like a geological era, promises to overlay digital stuff onto your real surroundings.
Think floating screens, virtual assistants hovering near your kitchen counter, and the distinct possibility that you'll walk into a coffee table while checking a notification that could've waited.
Meta's pitch is that this is the future of computing.
Skeptics' pitch is that this is a $1,500 way to look like a cyborg at a Denny's.
Passthrough mixed reality has come a long way from the grainy, nausea-inducing mess of a few years ago.
You can plausibly wear these things in your living room without feeling like you're trapped inside a 2004 screensaver.
But here's the thing about Meta and hardware: the company has a habit of announcing the future and then quietly abandoning it when people don't immediately buy in.
You probably don't, because it got memory-holed faster than a bad tweet.
Google Glass taught us that society is not ready for people walking around with cameras on their faces, and that was a decade ago, before everyone became convinced they were being filmed at all times.
Wearing these in public is going to be a whole thing, and not in a fun way.
Meta insists privacy is a top priority, which is a sentence that has never once calmed anyone down.
The company is asking the public to trust it with a face-mounted camera and microphone, which is a little like asking a raccoon to guard your garbage can.
Early versions of this stuff tend to cost as much as a used car, and the apps are limited until developers decide it's worth their time.
That's the classic chicken-and-egg problem that has killed more gadgets than I have brain cells, which is saying something.
A world where you don't have to hunch over a phone to read a message, where directions appear on the sidewalk ahead of you, where you can watch a movie on a screen the size of a wall while sitting on a plane—that's not nothing.
That's actually kind of cool, assuming you can afford it and don't mind looking like you're in a Black Mirror episode.
The real question is whether Meta can stick with it long enough for the tech, the price, and the social norms to catch up.
Given the company's track record, I'd bet on "maybe, but not before they rebrand it twice and cancel the app you actually liked." So, would I buy a pair?
Final Thoughts
Sure, right after I finish my Metaverse mansion and my NFT collection.