Technology
Meta's AI Pendant — The Next Wearable Frontier After Smart Glasses
An internal memo reveals Meta is developing a clip-on AI pendant and planning up to four new smart glasses models before year-end. With Reality Labs still losing billions, the wearables push is both a product strategy and a financial imperative.
By Michael G ·
Meta Platforms is developing an AI-powered pendant — a small clip-on device designed to provide a hands-free AI assistant throughout the day — and plans to begin testing it within the next year, according to an internal memo viewed by The Information. The pendant would represent Meta's most direct entry into the ambient AI wearable category.
The development follows Meta's 2025 acquisition of Limitless, the maker of a product literally called Pendant — a clip-on Bluetooth microphone that records ambient conversations and uses AI to provide contextual assistance. By acquiring Limitless, Meta gained both a product blueprint and an engineering team with experience in always-on wearable AI.
A Crowded Glasses Pipeline
The pendant is just one element of an ambitious hardware roadmap. Meta is planning to release up to four new smart glasses models before the end of 2026: Modelo (June), Luna and RBM2 Refresh (fall), and Mojito VIP (December). Two additional models — Artemis and SSG, described as supersensing glasses — are in testing for future releases.
All new glasses will be powered by Meta's AI models and will include support for Hatch, an unreleased AI agent that Meta has been developing internally. Hatch is expected to provide more proactive, context-aware assistance than the current Meta AI integration in Ray-Ban glasses.
The Financial Pressure Behind the Push
The aggressive hardware roadmap is inseparable from the financial reality of Meta's Reality Labs division, which has lost tens of billions of dollars since its establishment — more than $17 billion in 2024 alone. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told investors that glasses and wearables are the primary path to reversing those losses.
Wearables for Work
Alongside the consumer wearables push, Meta is developing a Wearables for Work product line targeting enterprise customers. Meta is targeting sales of 10 million wearable devices in the second half of 2026, a target that would require significant growth from current run rates but is not implausible given the pipeline of new models.
The pendant, if it reaches market, would be Meta's most intimate AI product to date — a device worn on the body that is designed to be always present and always listening. How the company navigates privacy concerns while building a product that is even more ambient than its smart glasses will be one of the defining challenges of its wearables strategy.