Facebook says the first pair of smart glasses will be launched next year as a branded Ray-Ban app, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed at the opening keynote of its all-virtual Facebook Connect conference. It's not clear what functionality the device will have, but Facebook has stated to The Verge that the device will not be labeled as an AR device and will not have an embedded monitor of any type. This means that they may be related to anything like Snap Spectacles or maybe Amazon's Echo Glasses.

Facebook claims the market smart glasses will be one step in its overall work on AR, which now involves advanced testing experiments called Project Aria, which is more like a full-length pair of AR glasses it sounds like. Starting this month, Facebook says the company will start exploring Aria in the real world with Facebook staff and contractors to iron out difficult problems in fields such as anonymity, video sharing, and architecture.

We're excited about discovering devices that will offer users meaningful opportunities to communicate to those nearest to them. Wearables have the ability to achieve this. In EssilorLuxottica, we have an equally optimistic partner who will lend their experience and world-class brand portfolio to the first truly trendy smart glasses, said Facebook vice president of the Technology Labs division in a release.