Since 2020, Reality Labs has lost a staggering $70 billion. That’s all changing as the company turns its attention to an ambitious new direction for personal technology. At a keynote event in the company’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Mark Zuckerberg changed the stage. He released his latest creation into the wild, a prototype dubbed Orion. The goal of this new technology is to create an experience smarter than the smartphone—one that is more prosocial facilitated by smart glasses.
Zuckerberg revealed something even more exciting in prototype Orion. This awesome exhibition was taking place in San Francisco from October 27 through 29, 2025. The launch showcased a very cool crescent-shaped wristband. Users can write text messages in the new app by imitating the gesture of writing with a marker. Users can clamp their fingers like they’re holding the point of a compass. For example, it enables them to create ‘written’ messages and push them to via their Ray-Ban smart glasses.
About 30 words a minute, I’m at,” Zuckerberg joked while testing out the new technology. His skill in writing with the wristband emphasizes the possibilities that hands-free communication could create.
Since 2021, Meta has invested millions of dollars into developing surface electromyography (sEMG). Their aim is to shake down this technology and ultimately bring it to a broader consumer market. Meta’s Reality Labs’ pioneering research into this field has now resulted in a collaborative study that proves the feasibility of such an approach.
Zuckerberg repeated this point to say that this technology is not meant to be intrusive. As he put it, “The technology should get out of the way. What he sees in the future is smart glasses that are more than a tool. Overall his vision is to improve social experiences and deliver a true sense of connection between individuals.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing during the keynote — Zuckerberg faced technical difficulties of his own as a number of real-time AI demos crashed from Wi-Fi failures. Even with these failures, he continued to hope for the future of smart glasses. He figured they could go beyond smartphones not only in UX, but in connectivity.
Amanda Silberling, a senior writer at TechCrunch who covered the event, noted that Meta’s ambitious plans may redefine the interaction between technology and daily life. “The promise of glasses is to preserve the sense of presence that people have with other people,” Zuckerberg stated, underscoring his commitment to creating an experience that enriches interpersonal communication.
Underneath it all, Meta is deeply in the red. In turn, Zuckerberg is doubling down on wearable tech with Orion, looking to deepen social interactions that frayed in the fallout from Meta’s mobile moment gone awry. This visionary undertaking paints a different picture, showing Meta’s continued commitment to boldness even after a disastrous 2022.
It is a super competitive space with huge stakes. During his keynote, Zuckerberg demoed an impressive product and laid out a compelling long-term vision for how technology can help humans thrive. He wants to shift our conception of devices away from smartphones and individual technologies to something that’s more holistic and baked into our environment. To do so, Meta’s continued research and development will be critical to this goal’s success.