Meta has been working on its smartwatch for quite a long time, and the product was planned for launch in spring 2023. The codename for this smartwatch is “Milan,” which costs around $349. Having a dual camera is its most prominent characteristic. A few months ago, some renders from the design leaked out that showcased an innovative design for the Meta smartwatch. However, the company had decided to pause the plans due to technical reasons and general cost-cutting. Bloomberg confirmed the news.
While no smartwatch in the market comes with a camera, Meta hoped to gain a competitive advantage with its new smartwatch. Competing with Apple and getting a share of the wearables market was a good incentive for Meta to develop a smartwatch with a dual camera. The wearable reportedly had a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls and a 12-megapixel camera for taking photos and capturing videos. The 12MP camera was placed underneath and you could detach the watch from your wrist to access the camera. The Meta smartwatch reportedly had an integration with services like WhatsApp and Instagram. Moreover, it was equipped with other typical features like GPS, cellular connectivity, activity tracking, and music playback. 18 hours of battery life on a single charge was also a promised feature by Meta engineers.
The Meta smartwatch was planned for spring 2023
Meta has come up with some technical hindrances while developing its smartwatch. First, the underneath camera interfered with the health monitoring features of the watch, like picking nerve signals from the wrist. Meta hoped to use this smartwatch as a handy device for controlling augmented reality (AR) glasses and metaverse. The company had previously emphasized on picking nerve signals for digital inputs through wrist-mounted devices. The technique is known as electromyography. While the Milan smartwatch development plans are paused, Bloomberg says that the company is working on other wrist-based devices. Meta has a bunch of hardware in development, like smart glasses and the Project Cambria VR headset. The goal is to make users stick with the hardware from the company and not drive them toward Google and Apple.
