1. You can’t buy them. And you won’t be able to anytime soon. It’s possible that you’ll never be able to buy them.

Each pair of glasses reportedly costs Meta $10,000 to make, and the company says it takes time to get them down to a price that makes them seem plausible — think something in the $1,000 range, like a laptop or high-end phone. (The $10,000 figure comes from The Verge’s Alex Heath. Meta declined to comment on the figure.)

If all goes well, it could take several years to get there.

2. I tried them and they are very cool!

They don’t make you see cool – you look like you’re wearing technology on your face – but the ideas and technology behind it are truly fascinating. If you’re one of those people who complain that Silicon Valley has produced nothing but soul-sapping social networks and monetization machines for years, we have a compelling counterargument here.

And more importantly, unlike other facial recognition technologies I’ve tried over the years—Google Glass, Apple Vision Pro, Meta’s own Quest line of glasses—I can actually imagine buying this one and using it in real life.

My brief experience with Orion comes with some reservations. The biggest is that it’s not ready for mass production yet. But if it works, it will deliver what many people in and outside of tech want: a wearable computer built into glasses.

What would you do with a portable computer?

First of all, you can do a lot of things with a phone: Make and receive phone and video calls. Send and receive text messages. Take photos and videos. Watch videos. Play pastime games. Experiment with AI.

And because Orion sits on your nose like glasses—clunky glasses that use silicon carbide instead of glass—you can do all of these things while viewing and interacting with everything and everyone around you.

This is “augmented reality” – digital images superimposed on the real world. As opposed to “virtual reality” – where you are completely surrounded by a digital landscape.

There are obvious downsides to this. If you find it frustrating to talk to someone who is constantly looking at their phone to check a text message or viral video, imagine what it would be like to have a conversation with someone who is staring at you and something else at the same time.*

But there are also some very interesting benefits. The most obvious: Imagine you’re faced with a task – like changing a tire, making a marinara sauce, or solving a math problem – and you can simultaneously see the task you want to complete and the instructions for doing it.

Orion uses eye tracking, meaning you select digital objects just by looking at them. And you manipulate them — turn an app on or off, reply to a text message, swipe through videos on Reels — by making subtle movements and clicks with your fingers. These gestures are registered by a snug but not bulky wristband** that registers the movements of your muscles using electromyography*** and transmits them wirelessly to your glasses.

Orion is also the closest thing I’ve seen to a portable facial computer. Unlike other devices I’ve seen, it doesn’t need to be plugged into a bulky power source or tethered to a phone. Instead, it connects wirelessly to a power/computing device the size of a TV remote that you can put in your pocket and that connects to the internet via Wi-Fi or cellular signals. Meta says its battery lasts two to three hours of continuous use.

And this is where I’ll stop talking about Orion’s specs, because it seems pretty silly to worry so much about something that’s still in development and may never go into mass production.

It’s also important to stress that my brief demo time took place in a Meta building, surrounded by Meta staff walking me through a Meta-scripted walkthrough. I have no idea how or if this thing works in the real world.

Meta executives don’t really know either. They say they’ll soon start testing the device with lots of employees to get a better feel for its performance while also figuring out how to make it lighter and cheaper.

Which brings us to two questions about Zuckerberg’s revelation this week.

First, why is Meta showing something that – at best – nobody will be able to buy for years? This reminds me of the time before the iPhone, when it was common for technology companies to show you things that they could one day, but very often not.

When I ask meta-leaders this question, they mutter that they want their colleagues to see the work they’re doing and to be encouraged by the progress they’re making. But there are certainly other ways to boost morale – like a record high in stocks, which just so happens to have happened this week.

My theory is about this stock price: Zuckerberg, who has gotten in trouble over the years for pouring billions into his metaverse dreams, wants to show the world – and investors in particular – that all those dollars weren’t wasted. And that he’s getting very close to a consumer device that people could buy in very large quantities.

Which brings us to my second question: Why does Meta, whose online advertising business is one of the biggest money-making machines in the world, want to make hardware at all?

That question is easier to answer. Most practically, as great as this money-printing machine is, it cannot function without phones from Apple and Google – companies that force Meta to abide by their rules and restrictions. If Orion or another Meta device becomes the future of computing, then Zuckerberg can be Business on be Devices.

But if you’re into sentiment-based answers, Orion’s debut is part of the Mark Zuckerberg 3.0 era.

One where he says he’s done with his apologies (though he still apologizes) and done with politics (though politics isn’t done with him). One where he tries out new looks (including his own designs).

So if he wants to do a victory lap with a really cool new technology – even if it is not yet fully developed? Then he will do it.

*While playing with Orion, I kept thinking about teenagers who walk around with a single AirPod in their ear at all times. The idea is supposedly that they can continue to hear whatever they want while begrudgingly listening to you too. I find this half-in, half-out way of interacting with the world incredibly frustrating. But I’m old. It may be different for you.

**For some reason, some meta people call this a “neural bracelet,” which makes it seem like it’s somehow reading your brain. Thankfully, it’s not.

***(I had never heard this term before this week either).