Facebook’s next hardware product will be “smart” Ray-Ban glasses

Enlarge / Don't get too excited about how well these Ray-Bans go with Gitta Banko's outfit-we don't know what Facebook's new smart glasses will look like, only that they're made in partnership with the brand and its parent company. (credit: Streetstyleshooters via Getty Images)

In an earnings conference call on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors that the company's next hardware launch will be "smart glasses" made in partnership with classic sunglasses vendor Ray-Ban.

Zuckerberg segued into the Ray-Ban announcement following a lengthy discussion of Facebook's plans for Oculus Quest, its all-in-one virtual reality (VR) platform. Zuckerberg says that social media is the real "killer app" for VR, backing that up with data from Oculus Quest: "The most popular apps on Quest are social, which fits our original thesis [that] virtual reality will be a social platform."

Zuckerberg intends the as yet unnamed smart glasses to be a stepping stone, not an end goal. He remained cagey about their actual purpose, saying only that the glasses "have their iconic form factor, and [let] you do some pretty neat things," with no concrete details about what those "neat things" might be.

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