Meta Connect 2025 kicks off on September 17 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET and September 18 at 1 a.m. BST, and we’re anticipating the Hypernova smart glasses to make their debut — rumored to be called “Meta Celeste.” I’ve always said that the future of smart specs will happen when AI and AR technology merge, and leaks are pointing to these glasses doing exactly that.
We got a preview of the fully-fledged face computer Meta sees as the future in Project Orion last year, and Hypernova is set to be the first step towards that with a built-in display and a wristband controller.
Fair warning — they won’t come cheap, and Zuck & Co. seems to know this with rumored limited production. Nonetheless, there are plenty of leaked reasons to get hyped. Let’s get into them.
Meta Hypernova: Predicted price and release date
- $800 — launching later this fall
So let’s tear off the price tag band-aid. Rumors suggest that the Celeste glasses will cost $799. That will be for the specs, including the gesture wristband (more on that later).
As for when you’ll be able to pick these up, reports are pointing to a launch date later in the fall. If you want a pair, be sure to pick them up quickly, as Meta looks set to produce 150,000 units only — anticipating demand may be lower due to the price.
Meta Hypernova: Design and features
- Similar to Ray-Ban Wayfarers, but slightly thicker and heavier
- Waveguide display in one eye
- Wristband controller
It’s looking like the classic Ray-Ban Wayfarer design is going to make a comeback for Hypernova. Leaked by Luna on X, you can expect them to be a bit bigger and to house all the new tech — more compute power, a bigger battery and that waveguide display in one eye.
For those uninitiated, waveguide technology differs greatly from the prisms you see on the likes of the Viture Luma Pro. Rather than projecting the image into the glass just behind the lens, there’s a surface imprinted directly onto the lens of the glasses that the image is projected to. This eliminates the need for a prism and means you can get anything blocking the view out of the way. But it does require more computing horsepower to do it.
A good frame of reference is the Rokid Glasses I tested recently, and you can see the additional bulk needed to house what is needed. As for controlling it, you’ll probably have the same touchpad on the side of the specs, but that’s where the sEMG wristband (rumored to be codenamed "Ceres") comes into play.
We saw this in action with Meta Orion — reading electrical impulses in your wrist muscles to identify the tiniest of movements as inputs. This is going to be significant for controlling smart glasses of the future, and we’re going to get a taste of this future real soon in easy interactions.
Instead of trying to do 6DoF tracking, something that takes a lot of processing power and your hand needing to be in front of the camera at all times, the wristband will take care of it subtly.
Meta Hypernova: Software and AI
- Meta AI with augmented reality
- A super lightweight version of Meta Horizon OS
- Small app launcher home screen
Not much is known on the software side of things, except that rumors point to a bunch of dedicated apps coming with Hypernova. Think of it like Meta’s own suite, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Meta AI bringing everything together.
Given there’s only one waveguide display in operation here, all of this looks set to be presented in a super simplistic six-app grid that users can interact with using the wristband — alongside gestures to move their hand in four different directions.
Meta Hypernova: Outlook
And that’s the story of Hypernova (or Celeste) — essentially the next generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses from what we’re seeing so far. With Android XR and Xreal’s Project Aura coming soon, the competition for the best smart glasses of the next couple of years is really starting to heat up.
With Meta AI bringing multimodal help, a display to augment information in front of you and a wristband controller to bring much more accurate interactions over voice, these look set to be something special.
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