How VR and Smart Glasses Will Shape the Future of Immersive Tech

The future of immersive tech is here today, or so it would seem, and it's all about pushing boundaries with devices like the Apple Vision Pro, Meta's Orion prototype, and the Meta Ray-Ban Stories. These smart glasses and VR headsets promise a revolution, blending the physical and virtual worlds like never before.

From Apple's Vision Pro, combining ultra-high resolution with spatial computing, to Meta’s Orion, delivering true augmented reality, the landscape is rapidly shifting. Even everyday eyewear is stepping into the future with Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, merging style with connectivity.

The future of tech is wearable, immersive, and limitless! (Well nearly)

Meta Orion: Smartphone Killer Or Just A Nod To The Future

Meta has unveiled "Orion," this week, its first true augmented reality (AR) glasses. These innovative glasses integrate Meta's vision for spatial computing, offering a highly immersive experience through virtual objects, gaming, and real-world overlays. Orion is designed to bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds with sleek hardware, real-time interaction, and intuitive controls.

With Orion, Meta aims to revolutionize how we interact with technology, moving beyond smartphones and traditional screens. It's a significant step toward making AR a mainstream, everyday tool for productivity, gaming, and more.

Meta has unveiled "Orion," this week, its first true augmented reality (AR) glasses.

Much like the Vision Pro from Apple, Orion uses hand gestures. However you need a front facing puck and a wrist worn wearable to make that happen currently. This is really exciting, the possibilities for products to design for this are endless, and perfect for some projects I'm working on currently.

Meta Ray-Ban Stories

Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories are a perfect "gateway drug" for future AR glasses, gently easing consumers into the world of wearable tech. By combining classic sunglasses style with hands-free photo, video, and music capabilities, these smart glasses introduce the idea of facial wearables in a familiar form.

As users grow comfortable with this tech, they pave the way for more advanced devices like Meta’s Orion, which will fully embrace augmented reality. Ray-Ban Stories are the stepping stone toward a future where AR becomes an everyday accessory.

Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories feature dual 5MP cameras for photo and video capture, built-in speakers for audio streaming, and three built-in microphones for voice control and calls. The glasses are powered by a Snapdragon processor, offering hands-free operation through voice commands, and can connect to the Facebook View app for media sharing.

Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories are a perfect "gateway drug" for future AR glasses, gently easing consumers into the world of wearable tech.

With touch controls on the temples, they seamlessly blend style with functionality, providing up to 6 hours of battery life. They are compatible with both iOS and Android devices, making them accessible to a broad user base.

And what of Apple Vision Pro?

This week, news has been leaked from the Bloomberg Journalist Mark Gurman about a new Vision Pro going into manufacture late 2025.

The Vision Pro has had a difficult start to life, mostly because of the Youtube hype merchants. It's a better story if you trash on a product and vocally send it back after 2 weeks. These people were/are not the intended demographic of user in the first place. I remain hyper bullish for Apple Vision Pro, and the variants that are spawned from this first, very high end dev kit.

The speculation on the trajectory for Apple's Vision project is rife.

The speculation on the trajectory for Apple's Vision project is rife, from a rumoured "Vision Air" to a lighter, cheaper product that could use the iPhone as the compute and battery element. To me this makes so much sense to remove weight and make it interconnected with Apples already immense mobile products, even the watch.

What next?

The race to make facial computing the next iPhone moment is truly on. You would think that Apple could win this race, but Meta are right in the game. Apple reportedly cancelled their smart glasses project last year in favour of the vision pro route, was this a wise decision? They may have to re-look at that decision down the line, or, even faster now they/we have all seen a glimpse of Meta's Orion, which as a first stab, is very I preside indeed.

As always time will tell, but I'm excited for what I can build and use on all these systems.