# Orion AR Glasses

Early experiences for Meta's AR glasses

- Role: Staff Product Designer
- Company: Meta Reality Labs
- Year: 2022–2023
- Tags: AR, Wearables, Prototyping
- Canonical: https://austastic.com/work/orion

Designed early experiences for Orion, Meta's AR glasses, including holographic calling, messaging, and spatial activities that informed the device's direction.

Worked closely with the Orion team to prototype and validate early interaction patterns for Meta's first true AR glasses.

Led exploration of what the best first shared experience would be in AR glasses, landing on spatial activities that were later refined for key demos.

## Overview

Orion is Meta's first true AR glasses - the prototype Mark Zuckerberg revealed on stage at Connect 2024. Two years before that reveal, I was designing what you'd actually do with them.

I prototyped and validated early interaction patterns for the device, and led the exploration of what the best first shared experience in AR glasses should be - spanning holographic calling, messaging, and shared spatial activities.

Work this early is conviction under uncertainty: the hardware was scarce, no interaction conventions existed, and every design decision was also a bet on what the medium would want to become. We landed on spatial activities - things you do together in a place - and that direction was refined into key demos for the device.

### What's the first thing you do together in AR glasses?

A first device needs a first experience, and for glasses meant to be worn around other people, we believed it had to be a shared one. I led the exploration across the candidates - holographic calling, spatial messaging, and shared activities anchored in your space.

Prototyping settled it. Concepts that demoed beautifully as renders fell flat on real faces, and the quiet ones - simple activities two people could do in the same room - were the ones testers didn't want to take off. Those spatial activities were later refined into key demos for the program.

Most of this work stays behind NDA, but the device itself is now public.

![Orion AR glasses prototype](https://austastic.com/images/orion/hero.jpg)

- [Meta Newsroom](https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/introducing-orion-our-first-true-augmented-reality-glasses/) — Introducing Orion, Meta's first true augmented reality glasses

## Contact

Austin McCasland — Staff Product Designer, Meta Reality Labs

- Email: austastic@gmail.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austastic/
- Web: https://austastic.com

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