Offers AI-Powered Vision, Sensors, and Tracking to Everyday Research
Meta has unveiled its latest research wearable — Aria Gen 2, a smart glasses system created for scientists, engineers, and AI developers. These glasses are not for regular consumers. Instead, they help researchers study how humans see, move, and interact with the world.
While Meta has not revealed the price yet, the glasses are set to be shared with select researchers later this year through applications. Meta will also demo them at CVPR 2025 in Nashville this June.
What Is Aria Gen 2?
Aria Gen 2 is the next version of Meta’s research glasses, first introduced with Aria Gen 1 in 2020. The new version is packed with improvements. It combines cameras, sensors, AI hardware, and real-time computing to make data collection smarter and more accurate.
These glasses allow researchers to track vision, motion, sound, and even heart rate — all in real time.
Designed for All-Day Comfort
The glasses weigh just 74–76 grams, depending on the size. They are light enough to wear for long research sessions. The new version also includes foldable arms, making them easier to carry and store.
Meta has introduced eight different sizes to fit a wide range of face shapes and head sizes. This helps ensure both comfort and accurate sensor alignment for every wearer.
Upgraded Cameras and Better Vision
One major leap is in the camera system. Aria Gen 2 has four computer vision (CV) cameras, double the number in Gen 1. These cameras now support a 120 dB high dynamic range, compared to only 70 dB in Gen 1. That means they can handle very bright or very dark scenes better.
The stereo overlap has increased to 80°, up from 35°, which allows the glasses to capture depth with higher accuracy. This is useful for applications like 3D tracking and building spatial AI models.
New Sensors Bring More Power
Aria Gen 2 adds a calibrated Ambient Light Sensor (ALS). It even has a UV mode to help detect whether the wearer is indoors or outdoors. This makes lighting analysis and exposure control smarter.
A contact microphone is built into the nosepad. It helps record clear sound, even in noisy places. There’s also a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, which can measure the wearer’s heart rate from the same nosepad area. This gives researchers biometric insights along with vision and audio data.
Real-Time AI on the Glasses
The glasses are powered by Meta’s custom energy-efficient AI chip, built to handle machine perception tasks on-device. This chip enables real-time tracking and signal processing without needing cloud connection.
One of the key features is Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO). It helps track the wearer’s head position and movement in six degrees of freedom (6DOF). This lets the glasses map and understand the environment with great precision.
Advanced Eye and Hand Tracking
Aria Gen 2 includes a camera-based eye tracking system that captures gaze direction, blink detection, pupil size, and more. It even calculates where both eyes meet (vergence) to understand exactly what a person is looking at.
The glasses also track the wearer’s hand movements in 3D space. This helps researchers capture hand positions and gestures in great detail. Such data can train robotic hands or study human-computer interaction.
Time Sync Like Never Before
Another smart upgrade is the SubGHz radio-based time alignment. It lets multiple Aria Gen 2 devices stay in perfect sync with each other. This works with sub-millisecond accuracy, far better than the older software-based method used in Gen 1.
This is a big deal for group research setups, especially in robotics and AR where precise timing matters a lot.
Who Should Use Aria Gen 2?
These glasses are made for developers, scientists, and labs working on:
- AI models for real-world use
- Robotics that need vision and motion inputs
- Health tech that combines vision and biometrics
- Spatial computing and contextual AI
If you’re building the future of human-AI interaction, Aria Gen 2 gives you tools to work smarter and faster.
Apply to Get Started
Applications for Aria Gen 2 access will open later in 2025. Until then, Meta is still accepting researchers for its Aria Gen 1 kits.
To stay updated, join Meta’s Aria Gen 2 interest list and prepare to be part of the future of intelligent wearable computing.
