If Meta seemed to have stopped its development of a connected watch in November 2022, the leak of a recent internal roadmap to the Californian company reveals that it plans to launch two connected products to wear on the wrist… but not in the same form anymore.
Article updated on March 6, 2023: The American multinational finally took its smart watch project out of the box. According to an internal roadmap of the company revealed by the US media the edge On March 1, 2023, Meta finally plans to release a smartwatch.
A bracelet to control the glasses.
Two products would be on the table. First, a connected bracelet instead of a watch. This device, called neural interface “It would be sold with the future connected glasses developed by the Californian firm to more easily control the glasses with” hand movements, such as sliding your fingers across an imaginary directional pad “, according the edge.
Eventually, this bracelet should also allow the use of ” a virtual keyboard and write as many words per minute as mobile phones allow “. It would also be sold with the Meta glasses.
A true smartwatch is also planned.
On the other hand, the second device should be a real connected watch, called to be an improved version of the bracelet. In addition to being equipped with classic health and fitness functions, it should allow you to film with the front camera during a video call, while the glasses film the user’s environment. You should also integrate links with Meta’s social applications (Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp).
In its four-year roadmap, Meta foresees the launch of these two products by 2027, after a first test with its employees already in 2024.
Meta could keep the detachable format
Information that echoes recent rumors reported by the leaker Kuba Wojciechowski on his Twitter account on January 31. Share several images of an unknown model of Meta connected watch, still in detachable format and running with a version Custom Android with a Qualcomm processor.
I was recently contacted by an anonymous source who provided me with some new information as well as some photos of a new version of the watch. pic.twitter.com/6BeAH9qIky
– Kuba Wojciechowski :3 (@Za_Raczke) January 31, 2023
However, there is currently no information to indicate that these images and the Meta connected watch projects correspond to the same products.
Original article from November 14, 2022 : A year ago, after the Facebook group changed its name to Meta, we learned, thanks to some recklessness, that the firm was working to develop several connected watches. A particularity of this, it would have been equipped with several cameras to better adapt to use within the framework of the metaverse.
Last June, however, we learned about the agency Bloomberg that Meta had put the development of its connected watch on hold: “ Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc has suspended development of its dual-camera smartwatch and is now working on other wrist-based devices, according to a person familiar with the matter. ».
If the initially planned watch seemed to be on hold and could have served as the basis for new smartwatches or connected bracelets, it finally seems that it will not be as the agency reports. Reutersat the end of last week.
On Friday, November 11, the news agency actually split a short article reporting current Meta projects:
Meta Platforms is exiting the Portal smart display market and will wind down smartwatch projects, several executives said during a meeting with employees Friday.
This brake on Meta’s hardware projects is undoubtedly explained by the drastic reduction in the firm’s workforce. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that he had to lay off 11,000 Meta employees, or 13% of his staff. A choice imposed, according to the head of Meta, by the growth forecasts modeled on the company’s results during the confinement phase of 2020. Meta then thought that the habits of Internet users would continue after Covid. All this without taking into account the current economic and energy crisis.
In addition, the valuation of Meta drastically jumped in one year, from 1,078 million million dollars in September 2021 to 299 million million dollars in November 2022, so there is a capitalization seen by four dollars in a peu plus d’ one year. Faced with this fall in the financial markets, Meta had to refocus on its core activities, namely social media, but also on its projects around the metaverse.
The connected screens also abandoned
In addition to ditching connected watch projects, Meta has also announced that it will drop its Portal range connected displays. Launched in 2018, this range aims to offer screens that allow users to easily make video calls.
For four years, Meta has multiplied the models with a Portal and a Portal+, followed by a Mini Portal, a TV Portal -which connects to the television-, a Go Portal and a Business Portal, aimed at companies. As the American site reminds usthe edgeMeta had already slowed down in the realm of connected displays in June by deciding to halt production.
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