Mark Zuckerberg is coming for your wrist, with a wristband to control smart glasses

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced a new piece of hardware Wednesday as his company tries to expand beyond social media: a wristband that he said can detect subtle hand gestures and control the features on a pair of smart glasses

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced a new piece of hardware Wednesday as his company tries to expand beyond social media: a wristband that he said can detect subtle hand gestures and control the features on a pair of smart glasses.

Zuckerberg debuted the wristband at Meta Connect, a company-sponsored tech conference. And while the wristband appeared nondescript, he said onstage that he was using it in combination with a $799 pair of smart glasses to send text messages surreptitiously without touching a smartphone.

“A lot of the time you’re around other people, so it’s good to just be able to type without anyone seeing,” he said as a screen showed him typing out a text message via his hand movements. The crowd applauded.

“I’m up to about 30 words a minute on this. You can get pretty fast,” he added.

Zuckerberg also demonstrated using the wristband-and-glasses combo to change the volume of music he was playing and to swipe through photos, which he was looking at through the smart glasses. He tried to accept a phone call via a hand gesture but failed and blamed the conference’s Wi-Fi.