Meta's Ray-Ban Stories Set for Revamp: Next Generation Smart Glasses to Address User Experience Issues

Meta Platforms Inc's META Ray-Ban smart glasses have failed to gain traction since its launch almost two years ago.

Less than 10% of Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses purchased since its launch in September 2021 were actively used by purchasers, the Wall Street Journal cites internal documents.

Also Read: Apple's Reality Pro to Set New Trends in Mixed Reality Market: Analyst

Meta sold 300,000 Ray-Ban Stories but only had about 27,000 monthly active users for the product.

The smart glasses, developed in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, experienced a 13% return rate due to issues with connectivity, hardware features, media import, audio, and voice commands.

Among the top drivers of poor user experience for the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses were issues with connectivity, hardware features including battery life, inability to import media from the devices, audio on the product, and voice commands for the smart glasses

Meta still plans to release the second generation of Ray-Ban Stories by fall or next spring. 

The new glasses will come with improved battery life, cameras, and availability of more Ray-Ban frames.

The first generation of Ray-Ban Stories starts at $299, and Meta aims to maintain a 4.0 or higher app rating for Facebook View, the app used with smart glasses.

Despite the initial challenges, Meta sees the Stories device as a precursor to future augmented-reality glasses, a crucial part of its vision for the metaverse.

Meta's Reality Labs division, responsible for the smart glasses, has faced significant losses, with an operating loss of nearly $8 billion in the first half of 2023.

The company hopes to become a dominant player in the emerging computing platform through its work in augmented reality and smart glasses technology.

Meta set a goal of 478,000 unit sales for the lifetime of Ray-Ban Stories, with a lower forecast predicting sales of 394,000 units.

In 2022, Meta scaled back its plans to release a series of augmented reality glasses and trim heavy investments in its Reality Labs hardware and AR/VR division.

Price Action: META shares traded lower by 0.34% at $313.14 on the last check Thursday.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.