It would not be strange to hear that Facebook is interested in getting into the Augmented Reality scene, but now, Facebook confirms its reported plans to roll out its first AR device. Facebook’s head of augmented reality Ficus Kirkpatrick confirmed, “Yeah! Well of course we’re working on it” ” We are building hardware products. We’re going forward on this.” He also added to the TechCrunch’s reporter at TechCrunch’s AR/VR event in LA, “We want to see those glasses come into reality, and I think we want to play our part in helping to bring them there.” Back in April 2017, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed that his company has the desire to own its first AR glasses, but the company does not have the science or technology today to build the AR glasses that they want. Hence, he expected that the Facebook company may own this augmented reality glasses in five to seven years, that’s why the company was focusing on building VR hardware. As Mark explained, “We can’t build the AR product that we want today, so building VR is the path to getting to those AR glasses.” A few months later, Business Insider reported a Facebook patent application for AR glasses and explained that the product is being built on using “waveguide display with two-dimensional scanner” to project media onto the lenses. Moreover, Cheddar’s Alex Heath has spotted that the company is working on Project Sequoia that depends on projectors to display AR experiences on top of physical objects like a chess board on a table or a person’s likeness on something for teleconferencing.

But, earlier in September 2018, it was reported that the Facebook company was looking forward to recruiting four experienced engineers who can build custom AR computer chips to join the Facebook Reality Lab. Then, a week later, Oculus’ Chief Scientist Michael Abrash pointed out at the company’s VR conference that “No off the shelf display technology is good enough for AR, so we had no choice but to develop a new display system. And that system also has the potential to bring VR to a different level.”

Finally, we can say Facebook’s augmented reality glasses could be a great chance for the Facebook company to own a mainstream computing device on which its software could run after a decade of being beholden to smartphones built, controlled and taxed by Apple and Google.