Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Meta’s plans for a Facebook smartwatch might be dead

Meta has reportedly shelved plans to make a smartwatch, codenamed Milan, that would come equipped with two cameras. As per a Bloomberg report, the company’s first smartwatch was slated to debut next year with a price tag of $349. However, the company has now canceled plans for mass production, apparently as a cost-cutting measure.

As per images of the prototype shared in the report, Meta’s smartwatch had a squircle display with a flat profile and a gold casing. The first 5MP camera sat on the front, positioned in a notch at the bottom of the screen. A more powerful 12MP camera was placed at the back, resting against wearer’s the wrist.

Recommended Videos

According to the report, this secondary camera would have allowed users to capture pictures when the watch body was detached from the straps. Aside from the usual set of fitness-centric capabilities such as heart rate measurement, breath analysis, and activity monitoring, Meta’s smartwatch also came installed with apps for Spotify, WhatsApp, and Instagram Stories.

Facebook smartwatch prototype Credit: Bloomberg

Unsurprisingly, the canned smartwatch would also have leveraged some of Facebook’s ecosystem perks. For example, it reportedly would let you post fitness achievements on Facebook or Instagram, straight from the smartwatch. A Facebook account would play the central role in managing all software and app-based activities, but there was no dedicated app store in the picture.

It was previously reported that Facebook was working on a custom fork of Google’s Android-based smartwatch operating system. Notably, Meta’s nixed smartwatch was targeting 18 hours of battery life on a single charge. One of the reasons cited for canceling the project was that the onboard camera interfered with the EMG (or electromyography) capability, which is currently a hot area of research and development at Facebook’s Reality Labs.

In Meta’s own words, the EMG tech relies on “sensors to translate electrical motor nerve signals that travel through the wrist to the hand into digital commands that you can use to control the functions of a device.” Meta claims the EMG tech can detect even a millimeter-level finger movement, allowing users to control and interact with virtual items (most likely, in the metaverse) using wrist-worn devices.

Facebook smartwatch render Credit: Bloomberg

Meta has already given a glimpse of prototype devices that employ the EMG tech to let users control an AR overlay of a desktop, type on a virtual keyboard, and even shoot an arrow from a virtual bow. Even though the smartwatch project has been canceled, learnings from it will be used in other wrist-worn devices that are currently under development. Moreover, Meta has reportedly chalked out plans for multiple smartwatches over the course of the next few years, so this might just be an initial hiccup.

Interestingly, an Apple patent that was unearthed recently also envisioned a smartwatch with multiple ways to equip it with a camera. One of the methods involved fitting a camera sensor on the lower portion, similar to Meta’s own idea, but housed in a detachable module. While the idea of a camera on smartwatches might sound invasive from a privacy perspective, it just might be where the future of wearables is headed.

Nadeem Sarwar
Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…
Check out Meta’s not-so-cunning plan to take on ChatGPT
Meta AI logo.

Meta wants a piece of the pie -- a big piece -- when it comes to generative AI. As part of its long-term strategy to embed itself in every part of our lives, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company is planning to launch its Meta AI chatbot as a standalone app, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources claiming to have knowledge of the matter.

Meta is aiming to launch the AI chatbot app between April and June this year, the sources said. The company may also offer a subscription model with more advanced features.

Read more
Heart disease kills the most Americans every year — smartwatches might save us
A person wearing the Fossil Gen 5e smartwatch.

The American Heart Association just released its 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update report with some critically important stats. It mentions that heart-related diseases, which are on an upward trajectory across the globe, are the leading cause of death in the U.S.

The findings, which have been published in the Circulation journal, note that thousands of people die of cardiovascular disease in the country each day. The toll is so high that heart-related deaths account for more than the combined number of cancer-related and road accident casualties.

Read more
Smartwatches might predict psychiatric illnesses tied to genetics
A person wearing the Fossil Gen 5e smartwatch.

Over the past couple of years, the medical science community has shifted its attention to wearables in a serious fashion, thanks to their mass uptake. Those efforts have yielded some remarkable results in the efficacy and potential of these wearable devices.

The latest such scientific revelation comes from the experts at the University of Barcelona. In a paper published in the Cell Journal, the team described how smartwatches can be used to accurately detect psychological disorders using biomarkers.

Read more