Social media giant Facebook has been playing catchup with their big tech peers Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft in the hardware market for half a decade. If the five biggest companies in the tech world were in a race for domination of wearable technology and smart home hardware, Facebook would be all the way at the back of the pack, dawdling along at a snail’s pace. It’s not been for lack of trying. The Silicon Valley giant has been pumping billions of dollars into its hardware efforts since at least 2013 but has very little to show for it.
Facebook’s attempts to engineer and sell a consumer device that will rival Amazon Alexa, the Google Nest, or the Apple Watch has fallen flat largely because of the many public controversies the company has courted over its data collection and privacy scandals. Public sentiment is overwhelmingly negative towards Facebook and social media in general, with a wide majority of Americans reluctant to trust the company with their personal data. It’s clear that Facebook is fighting an uphill battle to transform itself into a more immersive, varied consumer platform.
In the world of smart speakers and consumer electronics, Facebook may never be more than a bit player due to the buying public’s reluctance to invite Mark Zuckerberg’s ad-serving algorithm into their living room. The company will likely never be able to shake the widespread distrust and turn its Portal video-calling device into a top seller, making it easier for advertisers to target them with ads based on personal data continues to be a non-starter. The combination of public distrust and established competition remains impossible for Facebook to overcome in the smart speaker department.
VR: Facebook’s One Hardware Success
Where Facebook has begun seeing some traction is in its virtual reality (VR) division. The company purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion in 2014. Compared to megamergers for WhatsApp and Instagram that have helped propel Facebook to its current $800-billion market cap, Oculus has generated very little revenue for the social media giant, but things are trending in the right direction. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Facebook reported that non-ad revenue grew 156% year-over-year to $885 million. The explosive revenue growth was largely driven by strong sales of the new Oculus Quest 2 headset. Facebook still makes over 97 percent of its quarterly revenue from ad sales, but Oculus is chipping away, bringing that figure down from 99 percent.
Sales of the new Oculus headset have been driven by strong pandemic demand, but there may be some staying power thereafter life returns to normal if users discover they enjoy the content available on the platform. At the very least, the surge in popularity for Oculus and its games and workout classes should give Facebook encouragement to continue investing in new virtual and augmented reality technology.
Facebook and CTRL Labs
Snapchat and Google have both been touting the development of smart glasses for years (Apple’s getting in the game, too) but their Spectacles and Glass were a colossal bust. Turns out people aren’t quite ready to walk around with clunky, unfashionable glasses just for a chance to get a better Snapchat filter. That may change with better AR technology—at least that’s what Facebook appears to be betting on after acquiring CTRL Labs for a reported $500 million to $1 billion in 2019. CTRL Labs specializes in brain computing. The company had been working to develop a wrist-based device that could effectively allow users to control all of their devices with their minds in conjunction with augmented reality.
“Here’s how it’ll work: You have neurons in your spinal cord that send electrical signals to your hand muscles telling them to move in specific ways such as to click a mouse or press a button,” Facebook Vice President of AR/VR Andrew Bosworth wrote at the time of the deal. “The wristband will decode those signals and translate them into a digital signal your device can understand, empowering you with control over your digital life.”
Brain computing has been another pet project for Facebook since at least 2016, but the company may be getting closer to making a breakthrough thanks to their purchase of CTRL. The company’s new device is still just a prototype but has promise if the hype is to be believed. Facebook’s neuro-controller is still just an iPod-sized piece of hardware on a wristband, but Facebook claims it will allow users to navigate through augmented reality menus just by thinking about them. The unnamed device will use electromyography to read electrical activity in the brain. Clearly, there are privacy issues to be smoothed out.
Along with this wrist-based AR device, Facebook is also ramping up the development of its own glasses. The tech company believes their glasses will have real-life use cases such as ordering a cup of coffee as you walk past your favorite café or navigating to your favorite podcast without shuffling through your bag for your phone. Facebook claims its glasses will be proactive, rather than reactive, attempting to offer cues and prompts to the user based on their personal preferences and past actions. This is Instagram’s click-to-purchase e-commerce feature on steroids.
The ultimate goal of the wrist-based brain computing device is to take the handheld smartphone out of the equation and make it possible for users to live in an entirely immersive digital world without having to look down at a screen in their hand. A wrist-based sensor makes this possible, as Facebook envisions the device being able to interpret electrical motor signals sent from the brain to the hand. The technology does not drill into the mind and read thoughts, but rather observes nerve impulses and reads the signals our mind is sending our hand to make a swiping motion or a tap. As the technology improves, users will be able to interact with and manipulate digital objects in an AR world or type documents or messages on a dynamic keyboard that can use artificial intelligence to mold itself to your own typing style.
“We believe our wristband wearables may offer a path to ultra-low friction, always available input for AR glasses, but they’re not a complete solution on their own,” explained Facebook Reality Labs Director of Research Science Hrvoje Benko. “They need to be assisted with intent prediction and user modeling that adapts to you and your particular context in real-time.”
Is Facebook Reading My Mind?
This is clearly a big grey area for privacy. It may seem harmless to allow your Facebook glasses to order a latte for you, but for this to be possible, the device will have to track your movements, know your favorite type of coffee and how much you’re willing to spend on it. With all of this data, Facebook’s algorithm will likely be able to deduce just about every key data point and sell that information to advertisers. Facebook users can log off the app or disable location tracking, but Facebook wearables could potentially open up users to non-stop tracking, turning wearers into an unwitting cash cow to the social network.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ethical questions that still need to be answered before consumers should be offered the ability to give Facebook access to their brains. That being said, the technology is incredibly exciting and has the potential for exponential growth and widespread adoption if Facebook can quiet its critics and answer the many questions that will follow a continued push into the hardware space.
Facebook is putting all their cards on the table—they want to fully integrate their platform into every waking moment of our lives, but how much enthusiasm exists among the world population to turn their entire world into a walking, talking Facebook remains to be seen. If early returns on Facebook’s forays into hardware are any indication, the answer is not much. Brain computing and augmented reality have a place in the future of humanity, but perhaps another messenger is needed to spread the word.