Meta Scales Back Ambitions for AR Glasses

In March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to transform the world, the company then known as Facebook struck a deal to buy all the augmented reality displays made by British firm Plessey. At the time, the deal appeared to be a savvy way of squeezing out Apple in the competition to develop AR glasses, as Plessey was one of the few makers of AR displays. Three years on, however, the deal has turned into a bust for Meta.

Development of Plessey’s technology has stalled, say people with direct knowledge of the effort. Facebook, now called Meta Platforms, has struggled to make Plessey’s displays bright enough for use in its AR glasses under development and to reduce defects that crop up in the manufacturing process. Earlier this year, Meta decided to abandon Plessey’s microLED tech in favor of an older display technology, liquid crystal on silicon or LCoS. The decision is one of several Meta has made, for either technological or cost-saving reasons, that will reduce the edge that the AR glasses have over existing AR headsets like Microsoft’s HoloLens.