Development of a Meta smartwatch is on hold, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing an anonymous “person with knowledge of the matter.”.
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Facebook's parent company has never confirmed that it was building a smartwatch to compete with the Apple Watch and Samsung's Galaxy Watch. It also declined to comment on the Bloomberg report. However, Bloomberg claimed that Meta has been working on a smartwatch, codenamed Milan, "for at least two years.
The publication reported that Meta was aiming to release its smartwatch next spring and would cost around $350, but employees were "informed this week that the device is no longer on track for production."
Bloomberg claims to have seen images and video of a prototype Meta smartwatch that featured two cameras to compete with the Apple Watch. However, that dual-camera design — which supposedly included a 5MP camera on the south face of the watch and a 12MP camera on the back facing the wearer’s hand — was apparently part of the problem.
According to Bloomberg’s source, the Meta watch’s rear camera was meant to let people take pictures of the outside world. But the camera “caused problems,” Bloomberg said, with electromyography, a technology Facebook has touted that uses sensors to convert nerve signals from the wrist into commands for the watch.
Bloomberg noted that financials likely played a role in the Meta Watch’s withdrawal: Meta’s first-quarter 2022 revenue came in lower than expected (down from the $92–97 billion it had expected to $90–95 billion). Although Meta said it expected Reality Labs, which focuses on Meta’s AR/VR “metaverse” and is developing the smartwatch per Bloomberg, to be the second-largest driver of spending growth for 2022. Meta told Reuters in May that Reality Labs had to cancel and postpone some projects due to costs.
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However, if you're looking to wear a Meta product on your wrist, there's still hope. Bloomberg claims that Meta will continue to develop "many other wrist-worn devices" and may incorporate features from the smartwatch R&D into another product.
Those features, according to Bloomberg, include a removable watch face with a gold case that features two buttons and an eSIM slot, Spotify , WhatsApp , and Instagram Stories apps , apps for activity tracking , heart rate, and breathing, photos, and calendar apps , and 18 hours of battery life.
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The first image of a prototype Meta watch (shown above) was apparently spotted on Facebook's View app for Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses in October. This followed a June 2021 report from The Verge that claimed that Facebook (as the tech giant was called at the time) was creating a dual-camera smartwatch.
Source of information: arstechnica.com
