Brought to you by Meta. In addition to remaining active in the open source community and conference circuit, this podcast offers another channel that allows us to highlight the technical work of our engineers who will discuss everything from low-level frameworks to end-user features. Throughout the podcast, Meta engineer Pascal Hartig (@passy) will interview developers in the company.
86: A Hard Cell: Engineering Ultra-Narrow Batteries for AI Glasses
Your smart glasses run all day on a battery narrower than your pinky finger and building it required reinventing how batteries are made. In this episode, Pascal talks to Karthik and Myuran, the engineers behind Meta's steel can battery technology, to explore why traditional pouch cells couldn't cut it for the ultra-slim temple arms of AI glasses like Meta Ray-Bans and the Oakley Vanguards. Tune in to learn how Meta designed, built, and scaled the batteries powering your glasses, wristbands, and cases from first prototype to mass production.
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Links
- SilverTorch: Index as Model — A New Retrieval Paradigm for Recommendation Systems - https://engineering.fb.com/2026/05/26/ml-applications/silvertorch-index-as-model-new-retrieval-paradigm-recommendation-systems/
Timestamps
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Intro and News 0:06
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Guest intros 1:49
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The problem with existing batteries 4:16
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Pouch vs Steel Can Batteries 6:40
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What does lower impedence mean? 10:27
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Power requirements 12:25
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Synchronising two batteries 16:02
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Manufacturing never-done-before batteries 23:11
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Software vs hardware iteration cycles 28:12
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Collaborations across the globe 30:51
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Market compliance 37:00
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Outro 42:24