Image of Meta's smartwatch found inside the Ray-Ban Stories app and it shows a camera
Facebook Inc was restructured into Meta yesterday and virtual and augmented reality will be a major focus going forward as the future of how people connect with each other. It’s not going to be all about AR/VR headsets, though, the company appears to be working on a smartwatch.
The image below was discovered in one of the iOS apps, reports Reuters. It’s a squircle-shaped watch, its display has rounded corners and a notch for the front-facing camera. Yes, a camera on a watch.
The image was found in the app for the Ray-Ban Stories, the camera-equipped smart glasses that Facebook, sorry, Meta, co-created with Ray-Ban, so there will be some connection between the watch and glasses.
It’s not hard to see what that might be – the glasses can take photos and videos of others, but using them to snap a photo of your handsome mug is tricky. Using the watch for that will make things easier. Of course, the watch isn’t as good if you want to snap a photo of someone or something else. So, the glasses and watch complete each other.
Anyway, video calls is another possible application for the watch, though holding your hand up for long isn’t going to be ideal (and if you rest it on the table you get that awkward up-nose framing).
Previous reports of the watch claimed that the focus will be on health and messaging. There could be other uses too, e.g. as a controller for Meta’s VR headsets.
An insider said that there are three generations of watches in the works with the first one probably coming early next year. One of the later models could feature those detachable cameras we heard about. The watch should have LTE connectivity, allowing it to work without a phone, the price tag will be around $400.
