Facebook’s parent company Meta (for the record, I’m not happy about having to use this phrase instead of just “Facebook” for the next decade or so, until people get used to it) has teased a couple of new products. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (Facebook) spoke about an upcoming VR headset and AR glasses.
It seems, however, that Facebook (Meta) is working on other new products that Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t mentioned. Bloomberg reports that Meta (Facebook) is developing a smartwatch with a front-facing camera, and has a picture to back it up.
The photo comes courtesy of app developer Steve Moser who found it inside Facebook (Meta)’s new app for controlling its Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses. It shows an Apple Watch-like device with rounded corners and a selfie camera at the bottom of the display. The watch also has a barely visible button on top, as well as a detachable wrist strap.
Back in June, The Verge reported that Facebook (then not yet Meta) was working on a smartwatch with two cameras, but this is the first time we get to see an actual image of the device.
Blast to the past: In 2013, in anticipation of Apple Watch, Samsung launched the Samsung Galaxy Gear, a smartwatch that had a 1.9-megapixel camera barely anyone used. Modern smartwatches, including Apple’s and Samsung’s models, typically come without a camera.
For Facebook (Meta), which has recently refocused on virtual worlds and augmented reality, a camera-equipped smartwatch makes a little more sense, though we’ll have to see how it works in practice.
