Meta, Oura Continue Consumer Tech AI Overhaul

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Watch Meta, Oura Continue Consumer Tech AI Overhaul - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

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00:00What's the biggest news? What do you think we should first pay attention to?

00:04So I'm just going to ignore everything you guys said. I listened well, don't worry.

00:09But I actually just got something a few minutes ago. These are the Meta Ray-Ban displays. These

00:15are Meta's first display glasses. I haven't set them up yet. They just came into the office.

00:21These are the first mainstream smart glasses with a screen and the lens. We've talked about

00:26them significantly. And then it has what's called the neural wristband. You put this around your wrist

00:31and that allows you to track your finger movements and your motion in order to navigate the user

00:37interface of the glasses. So I'm actually really excited to diving into these a little bit later

00:43today, really using them and eventually publishing my review. They're $800. They went on sale yesterday

00:49at some Ray-Ban and LensCrafter stores, Best Buy stores. So excited to dive into these.

00:54What's the learning curve using this, Mark? Do you have to be trained to use it? Do you have

00:58to do a demo to use it? Can you just use it out of the box? Is it going to be easy for consumers?

01:03Yeah, they think that you need this crazy demo. And so they're not letting anyone buy it who

01:07doesn't get the demo. I got the demo at Meta's headquarters a few weeks ago. So they were pretty

01:12comfortable with me just getting one out of the box. There's probably going to be some sort of,

01:16they tell me, a video that plays on the glasses that, you know, when you first do the first boot,

01:20tells you how to use the thing. There's a little bit of a learning curve, 15, 20 minutes or so

01:26on the learning curve as well. And so it's going to take a little bit of time to get used to it if

01:31you're new to it, to get it up and running. But I think people will eventually like this technology.

01:37My hope is eventually it moves to a hand and eye tracking like setup. So you don't need the neural

01:43wristband, something similar to how the Vision Pro is operated. But definitely, I think this is a

01:49category that's going to take off. Unbelievable. I know when you talked about this last time,

01:54I mean, kind of, I think both of us were blown away and looking at your video that was on the

01:59Bloomberg about how to use it. Learning curves, you know, there's these videos to kind of have,

02:05you know, we figure out how to use things. But when I think about learning curves, Peloton,

02:10I feel like is still on a learning curve. And the stock has swung. I think it's like a 10 to 12%

02:16swing, Mark, from high to low today. They're upping prices. Explain this to us. And is this

02:25the way forward for this company? So it's a it's a mixed bag, right? The stock is down probably

02:31because of the changes in pricing. They hiked prices between a couple hundred bucks and 700

02:38bucks on the high end, depending on which bikes or treadmills you're looking to purchase. They hiked

02:44subscriptions between a couple bucks and five bucks, depending on which subscription you're

02:48getting. So Wall Street doesn't like that because that's going to lead to regression, even more

02:53regression in terms of user numbers. It's going to lead to people leaving their subscriptions. It's

02:58going to lead to people maybe not wanting to buy the devices themselves because of the higher price

03:03points. And so, you know, Wall Street usually likes a price hike. But in terms of Peloton, they

03:07really seem to despise it. On the other side of the coin, I think the hardware that they rolled out

03:12today is extraordinarily impressive. This new CEO has been in the building for a little bit less

03:18than 10 months. Actually, I think maybe 10 months to the day today. And they've got five or six new

03:24hardware devices under the prior CEO who was there two and a half years or so. They did basically

03:29nothing in terms of new product launches or innovation. So I think they deserve a lot of

03:33credit for working overtime and really fast to get this new equipment out. And so we'll see what

03:38really happens with these user numbers based on these price increases. But clearly, Wall Street is

03:41terrified. Okay, let's move on to another wearable in the Aura Ring, a $500 version of its smart ring.

03:49This one's ceramic. We should remind everyone, a lot of this stuff coming out right now because this

03:53is the holiday season. This is when people do holiday shopping. We traditionally get a lot of

03:57new devices and gadgets out during this time mark. This new Aura Ring, I was surprised that Aura has

04:02such a high valuation now. It raised money. Bloomberg News reported on this in recent weeks. What can you

04:07tell us about this ring and what it does for the business or could do for the business?

04:12I think it's going to do nothing for the business. This is absolutely the same ring that I launched,

04:17I think it was last October. It's the Aura Ring 4. It's just coming out in a new finish. That's $100

04:23more expensive. So it's the ceramic finish. I have the ceramic blue one arriving at the office tomorrow.

04:27So looking forward to taking that for a spin as well to see if there's anything more meaningful

04:31about it. But this is just probably a marketing lever and maybe raise ASP slightly. $500 for a

04:38smart ring. Interesting price point. Let's see what happens. Aura is a really fantastic business. But

04:44the problem is that they're $10 billion in terms of the valuation right now. So they're too expensive

04:50to get acquired, right? And they're not worth enough to be like some major hardware company.

04:59But they're getting there. They need more types of devices. They need to expand beyond rings into

05:03other types of hardware. Yeah, I was going to say, when it comes to things like this, technology

05:08devices, consumer tech, Mark, I mean, are we that easy? You know, you just put a different finish on

05:12and we're like, yeah, I'm going to spend the money. We're not that easy, are we?

05:16Depends. Sometimes. Maybe. I don't know. We'll see. I don't think people are going to buy the

05:21ceramic version. I think it's going to be super niche. I think people are more into the couple

05:24hundred dollar version. The reason these are doing so well is because of like FSA, HSA, whatever

05:29accounts. People are using that to buy these devices. And then a lot of people, maybe not a lot

05:35of people, but some people have the Amex Platinum. Yes. And the Amex Platinum, they just did their big

05:40price increase. And as part of that, there's like a $200 annual Aura ring credit on there now.

05:44Unfortunately, they should change this. That doesn't work with the subscription. You have

05:48to pay like six or seven bucks a month to use an Aura or $70 a year. But the $200 a year you get

05:53from Amex, it's kind of a scam because you need to buy the new hardware. And Aura doesn't come out

05:57with new hardware every year. That's neither here nor there, but that might be driving some purchases

06:02too. Is this Aura? I mean, and you wrote the story just a couple of weeks ago about the

06:08multi-billion dollar valuation. Is this a hardware company or is it a software company,

06:13software as a service? Well, it's both. They would be kind of, they'd be fine if they didn't

06:19have this subscription, but it's really the subscription and the annual subscription in

06:23particular that I think is driving things. You know, they always say hardware is hard.

06:27Hardware is very bad margin wise. It's not a good business. But when you're able to put a

06:32software product on top of it that has a 90% margin, you're in pretty good shape. This

06:39is why Apple shifted to services almost a decade ago now, because they knew that hardware sales

06:44were flatlining. They knew margins could potentially go down. They knew they would have to adjust

06:47prices. And the way to create recurring revenue is putting something on top that's necessary.

06:52And Aura and Whoop and some others have, Peloton, of course, is the poster child of this,

06:57have figured out this hardware plus software business model.

06:59And it seems like they're building that hardware blessing to the Physi-Montology model.

07:00So, if you're looking for an svincash platform, then I think the bare burner obviously

07:03hasлючened profitable Victimh vision. There is a commercial компании that wanted to

07:06give a more power from any usage when that puts keeping up the ebenfalls.

07:08Therefore, keep saying it and ensure that there is an어친ic

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