The name, design, and key finger gestures of Meta’s smart glasses with a HUD and neural wristband, expected to launch in October, have leaked.
The Verge, The Information, The Financial Times, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman have all previously reported that Meta intends to release smart glasses with a small heads-up display (HUD) in one eye later this year, codenamed Hypernova.
These reports indicate that the HUD will be used to show the time, weather, and notifications, to frame and preview photos, for turn-by-turn navigation, and to optionally display Meta AI responses as text instead of audio.
In April, Mark Gurman reported specific features and details of Hypernova, including a planned price of “over $1000 and as high as $1300 to $1400”, and the inclusion of Meta’s long-in-development sEMG wristband in the box for finger gesture controls.
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Now, XR dataminer Samulia has discovered early firmware for Hypernova on a public Meta server, and Meta Reality Labs enthusiast Luna and their associates have dug through it to discover visual assets within.
Samulia once discovered many details of Quest Pro in public firmware before it was revealed, and Luna regularly datamines Quest firmware to discover upcoming Horizon OS features and changes.
Arguably the most notable finding is a cropped render depicting the inner right area of the glasses.
As well as showing the bulge likely housing the light projection system, the image reveals that “Meta | Celeste” is engraved on the inside of the stem. Celeste” is engraved on the inside of the stem. Celeste could be a codename used by Apple to confuse leakers. Two other renderings Luna found, shown at the top, depict the design of the neural wristband and glasses. These renders are much lower in resolution but you can still see that Meta Celeste is thicker than Ray-Ban Meta. That’s seemingly why Celeste is a Meta-branded product, not next-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses as some other outlets have erroneously assumed.
According to that same report, the HUD glasses should weigh around 70 grams, compared to the 50 grams of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
The rendering of Celeste wristband looks identical to Orion wristband.saidLuna discovered videos of Celeste being controlled by the sEMG bracelet included in the package. Surface electromyography is used to detect the muscle activity in the wrist that drives finger movement. In theory, it enables precise finger tracking with very little power draw, and without the need to be in view of a camera.
One discovered clip, seemingly from a tutorial, depicts 3 gestures:
Swiping your thumb forward over the side of your index finger.
Pinching your thumb to your index finger and “pulling” horizontally.
Pinching your thumb to your index finger and “pulling” vertically.publicly demoedSwiping your thumb against the side of your index finger was introduced as a Meta Quest SDK feature in March, called Orion AR glasses prototype, and was a key part of the
. These gestures are likely all used to scroll the Celeste user interface.acquiredAnother clip Luna discovered reveals real first-person footage of the Ceres wristband in action during a gesture wherein the wearer pinches their thumb to their index finger and rotates their wrist. Luna also found clips that show it having a similar capacitive sensor on the temple as the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. It’s highly likely you’ll be able to use voice commands too, via Meta AI. It’s possible that Meta will partner with Microsoft to leverage Bing Maps, since Meta AI on the Ray-Ban Meta glass already uses Bing Search. It’s possible it will partner with Microsoft to leverage Bing Maps, as Meta AI on the Ray-Ban Meta glasses already uses Bing Search.
Finally, Luna discovered references to a built-in mini-game called Hypertrail.
- According to Luna’s findings, Hypertrail “may be inspired by Galaga or similar but also involve the user’s location in some way”.
- will take place from September 17, and we expect Meta to announce Celeste then and open preorders for shipping in October — assuming it doesn’t get delayed.
- In April, Mark Gurman
that some Meta employees were working weekends to ship the HUD glasses on time.microgestures