The big news this week has been Facebook changing its corporate name to Meta – and we now have a glimpse at the Meta smartwatch.
Back in January we reported that Facebook was working on a watch for 2022, and in June we reported that it would have a camera. And both these things look to be true.
The well-connected Mark Gurman from Bloomberg tweeted a picture of the supposed Facebook watch. The image came from the Facebook app itself, found by code miner Steve Moser – and apparently the watch is codenamed Milan.
And true to reports, there’s indeed a camera on the front.
Here it is: The first photo of Meta/Facebook’s in-the-works smartwatch to rival the Apple Watch. Image discovered by @stevemoser in Facebook’s own app and shared exclusively here: https://t.co/FEc6CE6eGQ
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) October 28, 2021
Presumably the camera will be for video calling via the watch itself, which is a fairly big USP given no other smartwatch brand has tried it. For good reason? That’s not for us to say.
There’s not too much else to glean. It looks like a pretty standard smartwatch. One of the previous rumors claimed it would pop out from its strap so you could take Instagram snaps on the go – which is possible…but unlikely.
The smartwatch would join the company’s AR glasses Project Aria and Oculus division – all of which will be heading to the new re-branded Meta.
The rebrand is definitely not because the Facebook brand has become horribly toxic, but because it’s planning to build a new VR internet called the Metaverse – which is like Habbo Hotel meets LinkedIn, where everyone meets up as avatars. See below.
And a "smartwatch" made an appearance in the demonstration of the Metaverse, where it was used to summon contacts in the Messenger app, while Robo Zuck and the gang were hanging out playing cards. So while the forthcoming watch may be a standard smartwatch play, we may have a hint of how Meta/Facebook sees smartwatches moving forward.
In terms of timing, previous rumors stated the company was working on a Gen 1 project running on Android, and a 2023 follow-up with its own operating system and platform. We’re not sure where the Meta Milan smartwatch falls – but we’re guessing we won’t see it anytime soon.
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James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.