What To Expect At Meta Connect 2025: 'hypernova' Smart Glasses, Ai And The Metaverse

Meta Connect, nan company's yearly arena dedicated to each things AR, VR, AI and nan metaverse is conscionable days away. And erstwhile again, it seems for illustration it will beryllium a large twelvemonth for smart glasses and AI.

This year, nan arena will return a somewhat different format than successful nan past. Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to footwear things disconnected pinch an evening keynote astatine 5PM PT connected Wednesday, September 17. A developer keynote pinch different executives will return spot nan adjacent greeting connected September 18, opening astatine 10AM, pinch much talks and developer sessions to follow.

It's not clear why Meta changed things up this year, but it is shaping up to beryllium a peculiarly eventful twelvemonth for Connect. We're expecting 2 caller models of smart glasses, including Meta's first to person a display, arsenic good arsenic caller Meta AI and metaverse updates. As usual, Engadget will beryllium reporting unrecorded from Zuckerberg's keynote astatine Meta HQ, but until then, here's a person look astatine what's coming and what to support an oculus on.

New and updated smart glasses

The biggest news of nan time will beryllium Meta's next-generation of smart glasses. The frames, often referred to by their reported soul sanction "Hypernova," will beryllium nan first consumer-ready glasses from Meta that person a display. We already cognize rather a spot astir these acknowledgment to much than a twelvemonth of leaks.

While nan frames are expected to person a mini show connected 1 side, they won't connection nan benignant of immersive augmented reality acquisition we've seen connected Meta's Orion prototype. Instead nan show will let you to position things for illustration notifications and photograph previews. The glasses will besides travel pinch a dedicated wristband, akin to what nan institution showed disconnected pinch Orion, that allows nan wearer to power circumstantial features done manus gestures.

The glasses, which whitethorn officially beryllium called "Celeste," are expected to spell connected waste later this year, will apt costs astir $800. They could beryllium sold pinch Prada branding, which would beryllium successful statement pinch Meta's longtime EssilorLuxottica partnership, according to CNBC. Given nan overmuch higher value tag — astir of Meta's Ray-Ban-branded glasses costs astir $300 — it seems Meta is positioning this arsenic a higher-end merchandise that will person a much constricted appeal. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has suggested Hypernova will person a "negligible" stock of nan wide smart glasses market.

It besides sounds for illustration we could spot a caller type of Meta's smart glasses without a show pinch an updated type of nan Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. There could beryllium 2 versions for sunglasses and clear frames, according to leaked renders. The caller glasses are reported to person improved cameras and artillery life, and support caller AI capabilities.

We could besides spot caller third-party glasses integrations. As UploadVR recently pointed out, early versions of nan Connect schedule for developers seemingly confirms that Meta is getting fresh to springiness developers entree to its smart glasses. Up to now, nan Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley glasses person mostly been constricted to apps wrong Meta's ecosystem (with a fewer exceptions for illustration Spotify and Audible). Allowing much developers to commencement experimenting pinch nan level could bring moreover much functionality to nan existing lineup of glasses.

Meta AI

As pinch different caller years, AI will beryllium a awesome taxable throughout. Meta AI has a billion monthly users (something Zuckerberg will surely punctual america of) and I'm expecting to spot caller features for Meta AI some connected nan company's glasses and wrong its apps. Business Insider reports nan institution has been moving connected caller lineup of non-English speaking "character-driven" bots for its apps. (Meta's character-centric chatbots person besides faced scrutiny, pinch nan institution recently blocking teens' entree to galore user-generated characters amid increasing information concerns.)

Outside of Meta's chatbots, I'm hoping Zuckerberg will talk much astir his imagination to create "superintelligence." As I wrote successful July, his initial manifesto that outlined his imagination was confusing astatine best. The CEO has precocious reorganized Meta's AI teams astir nan idea, and has been connected a very costly hiring spree to enlistee executives and researchers for nan effort.

At nan aforesaid time, Zuckerberg could usage Connect to statement up expectations astir its Llama models. The company's larger Llama 4 exemplary has been delayed and reports propose Meta's engineers person been struggling to amended it. There are different signs that Zuckerberg whitethorn beryllium backing away from open-source AI.

What astir nan metaverse?

While nan metaverse has taken somewhat of a backseat to AI successful caller years, it wouldn't beryllium Connect without immoderate VR-related news. In a caller Instagram post, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth teased "metaverse software" updates related to Horizon Worlds astatine Connect. The institution precocious offered a preview to developers of its scheme to bring AI-powered NPCs to nan metaverse, and I expect we'll perceive much astir really generative AI could thief style nan metaverse.

And while location are nary caller Quest headsets expected, we could perceive much astir those third-party VR headsets that will tally Meta's VR software. Last year, nan institution announced that ASUS, Lenovo and Xbox were moving connected Meta Horizon OS headsets. We haven't heard excessively overmuch astir these devices since, but location was a leak earlier this twelvemonth that suggested ASUS would beryllium nan first to launch, and that it would see look and oculus search features.

Another intriguing anticipation is an update connected Meta's holographic Codec avatars we sewage a glimpse of past year. While Meta's existent lineup of VR headsets don't person nan basal look and eye-tracking sensors to support nan tech, UploadVR suggests Meta could show disconnected a much "rudimentary" type of nan avatars that could tally connected nan Quest 3 aliases moreover activity successful conjunction pinch video calls connected WhatsApp and Messenger.