Apple Inc. is exploring a push into smart glasses with an internal study of products currently on the market, setting the stage for the company to follow Meta Platforms Inc. into an increasingly popular category. 

The initiative, code-named Atlas, got underway last week and involves gathering feedback from Apple employees on smartglasses, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Additional focus groups are planned for the near future, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work is secret. The studies are being led by Apple’s Product Systems Quality team, part of the hardware engineering division.

“Testing and developing products that all can come to love is very important to what we do at Apple,” the group wrote in an email to select employees at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. “This is why we are looking for participants to join us in an upcoming user study with current market smart glasses.”

When Apple is considering whether to enter a new category, it often hosts secret focus groups to understand what people like about existing products. The company typically relies on employees — rather than customers — so it can avoid making its plans public.

The latest study suggests that Apple is moving forward with its own work on smartglasses, though they already have a strong foundation of technical patents on record: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 and many more in our patent Archives. One of Apple’s patent figure-sets related to smartglasses below illustrates one concept of a modular design. 

Apple has filed patents on smartglasses for at least 7 years. So Apple isn’t playing catch up or “following” Meta here in any shape or way.

For more, read the full Bloomberg report.