Meta Unveils Muse Charm, a Tiny AI Gadget Inspired by Tamagotchi

Meta closed its Connect 2026 keynote yesterday evening with an unexpected reveal: a palm-sized companion device built around Muse, the company’s new AI assistant.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg showed off the gadget on stage just weeks after Muse debuted on iPhone, Android and the web. The assistant has already caught on in Canada, topping the App Store charts earlier this week.

Mark Gurman spoke with Zuckerberg and Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth about the device for Bloomberg, while his sources provided additional details about its development, pricing plans and launch timeline.

The device is called the Muse Charm, and its design takes cues from the Tamagotchi, the handheld digital pet that became a 1990s phenomenon.

Its roughly two-inch OLED touchscreen fits in the palm and is controlled by touch. An animated Muse character sits at the centre of the interface, with owners able to customize its appearance, wardrobe and voice. The device runs a new operating system built specifically for the hardware.

An onboard 5G modem keeps Muse connected away from Wi-Fi. Otherwise, its hardware resembles a stripped-down smartphone, with front and rear cameras, speakers, microphones, music and video playback, and USB-C charging.

The cameras also act as Muse’s eyes, giving the assistant visual context for analysis and AI-assisted actions. Photos and videos can be viewed directly on the device, though the Charm doesn’t support phone or video calls.

A translucent shell leaves the internal circuitry visible through the back and sides.

Portability is a major part of the design. The Charm can be worn on a wrist strap, carried in a pocket or attached to a bag or keychain with a lanyard. Two Charm devices placed near one another can also recognize and interact with each other.

The project comes from Meta’s newly formed design lab, led by former Apple interface design chief Alan Dye alongside the company’s Superintelligence AI group.

Dye and Billy Sorrentino, one of his top deputies from Apple, drove both the hardware and the character-based interface. The pair joined Meta in late 2025 and have since recruited additional Apple designers whose work also influenced the Muse smartphone apps.

Bosworth told Gurman the team began exploring the Charm concept in March and moved from its first sketch to a finished product in roughly nine months, an unusually fast turnaround for new hardware.

What began as a playful internal prototype became a serious product program after Zuckerberg pushed the company to pursue it.

Gurman’s sources say the device was developed under the internal codename “Clawmagochi,” combining its Tamagotchi-inspired design with the developers’ interest in the OpenClaw AI assistant.

Pricing hasn’t been finalized, though Gurman’s sources say Meta is considering something in smartwatch territory. Cellular carrier fees are also still being worked out.

Those same sources say Meta plans to put the Charm on sale in December under an accelerated schedule. The device was originally targeted for 2027, but Zuckerberg pushed for a 2026 unveiling and a launch before the end of the year.

Setup and syncing will be handled through the Muse app on iPhone and Android.

Bosworth made clear to Gurman that Meta sees the Charm as an experiment rather than the centrepiece of its hardware strategy.

“It’s cool, it’s fun, it’s neat, it’s weird, it’s different. There’s nothing like it,” he said, describing the device as “an exploration, the classic v0” and saying the company wants to see how people respond.

Bosworth expects far more people to use Muse through phones and smart glasses than through a dedicated Charm, though he believes the assistant’s most enthusiastic early users could give the device an audience.

Gurman’s sources say the first-generation Charm is aimed at those Muse enthusiasts, with future versions possible if the concept gains traction.

The device shared the Connect stage with new Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses announced at the same event.

The bigger question is whether people want to carry a dedicated AI gadget when the same assistant is already available on the phones they use every day.

For Meta, the Charm appears to be a relatively small experiment that could help shape future Muse hardware. Feedback from early users could influence a second-generation device while also informing Muse development on phones and glasses, where Bosworth says the much larger audience will remain.

Meta’s Canadian Muse Charm page currently says the device is “not yet available in your region,” and Canadian pricing hasn’t been announced. So who knows when this will land in Canada.

There’s also no word yet on how cellular service will work in Canada. Ideally, Meta and its carrier partners will handle connectivity directly rather than requiring customers to arrange a separate data plan themselves.