The Metaverse – Meta: Two Steps Back

Meta takes a step forward and two back.

• Meta is doing the right thing for the development of the Metaverse when it comes to hardware, but its decision to move away from Unity will reduce compatibility and exacerbate the Metaverse silo problem.
• Meta held its annual Connect 2025 event, where it showcased its new smart glasses products, which are the next logical step in enticing users into trying the sorts of use cases that will work well for the Metaverse.
  • First, Smart Glasses shipments: which are growing very quickly but remain an insignificant rounding error when compared to smartphones and other personal computing devices.
  • Here, Mr Zuckerberg stated that the shipment trajectory was “similar to the most popular consumer electronics devices of all time”.
  • In plain English, this means they are growing fast but remain at a very low level.
  • For example, RFM Research estimates that if smart glasses shipments were to double every year for 7 years, they would still be less than 20% of the smartphone market.
  • This is an indication of just how far this market has to go and why it will still take a very long time to become significant, even with optimistic scenarios.
  • Second, Meta Glasses: where the classic glasses have been updated, but also the product line has been extended further into the Luxottica portfolio.
  • Meta says that smart glasses must be great glasses first, the technology needs to get out of the way, and there needs to be an effective AI to use with the glasses.
  • This means a better camera that can now take video in 3K as well as longer battery life without making the glasses any heavier than the previous generation.
  • I broadly agree with all of this, and the expansion into Oakley and Oakley Vanguard, as well as integration with Garmin and Strava, improve the sports use case further.
  • The result is smart glasses that work pretty well with use cases that are effective when one does not have to fish around in one’s pocket for a phone.
  • Third Meta Ray-Ban Display: which is similar to the other products except that there is a small display on one of the lenses in the product.
  • Initial testing suggests that the display is bright and vibrant, offers high-quality graphics with good outdoor visibility.
  • It is not meant as an overlay of the real world but is solely meant for information.
  • For example, it can offer captioning of speech, live translation, navigation and instruction for tasks that require both hands.
  • The device also comes with a “Neural” wristband that acts as an input device in addition to voice commands.
  • Here, gestures can be made without needing the hands to be in the view of a camera and by all accounts, it works pretty well.
  • This interacts with the screen and allows for scrolling, selection, and even handwriting motions to be converted into text for answering messages without having to speak.
• The net result is that these new products are a step forward in offering new use cases and easing consumers into a Metaverse-like experience, but it remains to be seen how well they work and what the adoption is going to be like.
• The demos were hilariously bad, but these were due to all of the devices activating at the same time with the “hey Meta!” wake word and a new bug cropping up in the WhatsApp calling feature.
• However, I am not sure these failures mattered very much as they were taken in good humour, and the audience got the point
• However, where I think Meta has gone really wrong is in the adoption of the Meta Horizon Engine.
• This is a proprietary engine that will render the Metaverse in Meta’s Metaverse ecosystem and is a move away from the industry standard of Unity.
• Many games and many other 3D environments are rendered using Unity, and the migration to Meta Horizon Engine will make Meta more vertically integrated and a more closed system than it was before.,
• This is an issue because the biggest problem with the Metaverse is that everyone is doing their own thing, leading to many silos, none of which can talk to teach other.
• This is RFM’s Metaverse fails scenario, and unless this is fixed, the Metaverse will never take off in size and will remain a niche destination for activities like playing certain games and watching certain types of video.
• The Metaverse needs to be like a high street in terms of the user being able to visit any ecosystem that he or she likes without having to use a different piece of hardware or operating system.
• This is why Unity, Omniverse and Unreal Engine are three to keep an eye on as each has the potential to be a point that unites all of the different ecosystems,
• However, with Meta Horizon Engine, Meta takes a step back from that and makes it harder to achieve compatibility and therefore harder for the Metaverse to reach the mass market.
• Instead, Meta, like Apple and many others, think that their ecosystem will be so popular that developers will come anyway, which is a dangerous assumption in my opinion.
• This is why I view the move away from Unity as bad for everyone, including Meta, which has now made it less likely that the Metaverse will be the place where everyone lives their digital lives in 10 or 20 years’ time.