What are the highlights of Meta's first consumer-grade AR glasses, Celeste, which will be launched in September?

Meta's first smart glasses with a display will be launched in September. This report organizes relevant information from the aspects of product overview, design philosophy, product portfolio, and future outlook.

Overview of Meta Celeste

Meta's first smart glasses with a display will be launched in September, starting at a price of $800, originally expected to be priced above $1,000.

The price adjustment partly stems from Meta accepting lower profit margins to stimulate demand, which is a common strategy for new products.

Core Design of Meta Celeste

The design of Meta Celeste employs a "subtraction" strategy, with the front frame design being very similar to Ray-Ban Meta. The left side features a flash, and the right side has a camera, with the theoretical location of its optical components at the front of the temple arms, measuring approximately 10.6mm in length, and the middle section of the temple arms measuring 56mm; its core display function is a monocular heads-up display (HUD) that focuses on presenting "glanceable" information, including time, weather, notifications, photo previews, navigation guidance, real-time voice transcription and translation, as well as text responses provided by Meta AI.

Meta Celeste's choice of a monocular display solution is a typical "subtraction" strategy, which sacrifices the ability to create 3D stereoscopic effects but achieves significant advantages in terms of lightweight design, cost control, and battery life, allowing for more precise targeting of lightweight application scenarios such as information prompts and navigation.

Product Portfolio of Meta Celeste

Meta showcased a combination of an electromyography (EMG) wristband with AR glasses—filling the gap in voice interaction scenarios. This is suitable for use in public places and other environments where direct voice communication with AI is inconvenient.

With the help of this wristband, Celeste can also achieve functions such as stress detection, allowing users to interact with the AR glasses through gestures similar to pinch gestures on Vision Pro. Meta Celeste will serve as an interesting experiment to test the practical value of small HUDs and finger gesture controls in smart glasses, as well as whether these features are sufficient to support a higher price point.

Future Outlook

After an adjustment period in 2024, the AR market is expected to rebound rapidly and accelerate growth. The AR glasses market is projected to experience explosive growth in the second quarter of 2025, with global sales reaching 151,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 40%. The launch of Meta Celeste has begun to increase market attention towards AR devices, and with the decline in OLEDoS product prices, global AR shipments are expected to reach 600,000 units in 2025.

Meta Celeste innovatively integrates the electromyography (EMG) wristband into its product system for hardware interaction, and its monocular HUD design balances lightweight design with practical information interaction, providing a reference for future products in balancing display technology and functional integration; as an early access point to the Meta AR software ecosystem, it can collect user data and feedback in lightweight information interaction scenarios, aiding in ecosystem development Although Celeste is not the ultimate form of AR glasses development, it lays the foundation for the evolution of Meta's subsequent spatial computing terminal products in dimensions such as interactive exploration, market validation, and ecological integration. Meta's active investment, benefiting from market expansion, is accelerating the development of the supply chain, further improving the ecosystem, helping to focus on overall design and market positioning, and making prices more aligned with consumer psychological expectations, thereby promoting more potential users to enter the AR glasses market and driving a positive cycle.

Author of this article: Xie Haoyu, Chen Ziyi, et al., Source: Guotai Junan Securities, Original title: "Meta's First Consumer AR Glasses Celeste Preview"

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