Meta and eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica announced they’re expanding their smartglasses partnership into 2030, which promises to see further development of “multi-generational smart eyewear products” from the companies.
Working together since 2019, Meta and EssilorLuxottica released the first-gen Facebook Ray-Ban Stories glasses back in 2021, later launching the follow-up Ray-Ban Meta Glasses in fall 2023, which included improved cameras, audio and more design options.
Notably, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses don’t include displays, instead offering input through voice assistant and touch on the glasses’ struts for things like taking pictures, videos, and listening to music. Since the launch of its second-gen Ray-Ban smartglasses, Meta has also released AI-powered object recognition from Microsoft’s Bing.
Besides Ray-Ban, EssilorLuxottica also owns Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, and Vogue Eyewear, as well as eyewear retailers LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, and Sunglass Hut.
“The incredible work we’ve done with Meta, still in its early stages, has already proven to be an important milestone in our journey to making glasses the gateway to the connected world,” EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri says in a press statement, further noting the company is looking forward to “continuing to chart the future of the category together.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed excitement about the companies “long term roadmap ahead,” noting Meta and the Italian-French luxury eyewear group have “the opportunity to turn glasses into the next major technology platform, and make it fashionable in the process.”
This follows a report from June that Reality Labs, Meta’s XR division formed in 2020, was reorganized to better serve its wearables category.
An alleged internal memo from Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, Meta CTO and head of Reality Labs, maintained the company was “doubling down on finding a strong product market fit for wearable Meta AI, building a business around it, and expanding the audience. Our north star to overlay digital content seamlessly onto the physical world remains the same, but the steps on that path just got a lot more exciting.”
Then, in July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta was considering a minority stake of about 5% in the company, worth an estimated €4.33 billion euros (~$4.73 billion). At the time of this writing, the deal still hasn’t been confirmed, however it’s clear Meta is well on its way to deepening ties to EssilorLuxottica in effort to make smartglasses, and possibly AR glasses, an undeniably fashionable accessory.
