Walking about Meta Connect 2026, everyone’s sporting astute glasses in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes. It’s a marked difference here, a tech bubble anywhere “pervert glasses” are not a concern.
Outside Connect, the community backlash against wearable surveillance tech — a catchall term that encompasses not fair astute glasses, but additionally smartwatches and AI pendants — is gaining steam. So it’s incredibly inquisitive timing that this year, the business is launching Ray-Ban Meta Audio Glasses: astute glasses infused alongside Meta AI, but alongside no camera for record others.
To comprehend Meta inform it, that’s a coincidence. Audio-only glasses have been years in the making.
“Three years ago, it wasn’t apparent if AI glasses were going to be a thing. Back then, all another business was assistance out of the space,” says Alex Himel, Meta’s vice chairman of wearables. “Then two years ago, we saw that audio was the top use case, the biggest possible for AI, and that it should activity fine in a brace of audio glasses.”
Himel has a point. Open-ear audio is the smallest arguable part of the Ray-Bans — and the item everyone can concur is convenient. Plus, the camera-less glasses are lighter. Himel says that by removing the cameras, Meta could “rearchitect” the glasses. “That allowed us to obtain a lot of electronics out of the forefront example and have a lot additional scheme flexibility.”
The audio-only models commencement at 43 grams — heavier than normal wire-frame glasses, but noticeably lighter than the approximately 50g Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 and the 69g Meta Ray-Ban Display. The arms are thinner. They arrive in two styles: the Mad Men-esque Clubmaster and the additional Wayfarer-reminiscent Burbank. The hinges broaden for wider faces; the temple arms and nose pads are adjustable. There are 23 color and lens combinations, and they can assistance the identical wider medication range as the Ray-Ban Meta Optics lineup. Even additional so than the norm Meta Ray-Bans, these appearance and wear akin normal glasses. And alongside a $349 starting price, they’re cheaper too.
Free of a power-hungry camera, the power division lasts an estimated 12 hours on a sole charge. The most specialized things you can do alongside them are engage alongside Meta AI, obtain phone calls, and hear to podcasts or music. And that’s it.
“They don’t record,” Himel says. “The lone item they do, which is the identical item as an Alexa equipment in your home or several another devices, they’re fair listening for a particular awaken word. They’re not sending item … If they comprehend [the awaken word], afterward they commencement listening to what you’re saying. When you’re done talking, afterward it’s processing, and that’s apparent to the AI. It gets processed, and that’s benevolent of it.”
Slipping them on, they’re comfortable and, I think, fairly fetching on me. Regardless of how one power awareness concerning Meta, it’s fair to conjecture most group would awareness small akin a creeper wearing these.
Meta Glasses and Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3
I awareness alternatively slipping on the new Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3. Partly since the camera is rear in play, partially since the brace Meta gives me is the new aviator manner alongside passage lenses. I’m told I can drag it off, but I keep asking my coworker Jay Peters if I’m giving ’80s serial killer vibes. The another new manner is called Zena — not the warrior princess — and it’s a bolder, geometric cat-eye frame.
The third-generation glasses characteristic fairly insignificant refinements. There’s a sixth microphone, compared to the second generation’s five, for clearer phone calls. Battery existence has gotten a minor boost to nine hours, an hr longer than the second gen. The temple arms, akin the audio-only glasses, are adjustable for a improved fit. All audio volition now be captured in Dolby Atmos for spatial audio. Sure! That’s neat if I’m in my quiescent inn room, but it’s harder to value whenever reviewing footage amid the hustle and bustle of Meta Connect. The new example comes in 27 color and lens combinations, affirmative three seasonal options.
Along alongside the hardware changes, the Gen 3 glasses are additionally getting a cost bump. They commencement at $449, up from $379 for the second-gen models final year.
Meta Glasses — the off-brand, additional affordable entry-level glasses launched a few months ago — also have additional options. There are two new styles, Capri and Nova. Capri is several benevolent of cat-eye shape, during Nova… honestly, the styles are all starting to blur together. They’re circular and prompt me of multiple another Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but slightly different. There’s a new ivory-colored Kylie Jenner brace that expenses $399.
But perchance Kylie Jenner isn’t the community fig collab you’ve been dreaming about. That’s fine. Because Blackpink’s Lisa — a K-pop icon and The White Lotus actress — also has Meta Glasses. They have pink lenses and arrive alongside a blind-box-type charm styled following Lisa’s pets. These additionally commencement at $399. (Non-celebrity versions of the Meta Glasses commencement at $249.)
Why the community fig collabs? Options for additional people, including women.
“With the Meta Glasses Starfire alongside Kylie, we saw a younger, additional female spectators commencement to buy the glasses,” says Himel. “Wayfarer is the most famous glasses category in the world, but it tends to be additional masculine — although certainly not exclusively male. The second brand we did was Oakley … but Oakley [also] tends to be a additional masculine brand. So I think alongside Kylie and Lisa, and alongside additional styles, we’re seeing them petition to additional women.”
There are really more limited-edition versions, styles, colors, and medication permutations accessible throughout the complete existing Ray-Ban Meta lineup at a entire range of cost points. I doubtful I’d need to create a spreadsheet to catalog them all. While scuttling concerning Meta’s evidence this week, I’m brought to an complete area anywhere they’re all displayed. It looks akin a high-end shop for, regular, schmegular glasses. That, I suspect, is the entire point.
All about the campus, there are life-size cutouts of Meta’s cuddly Muse mascot. That’s since Muse, Meta’s lately released individual AI agent, is coming to the apparently 4,000 iterations of Meta astute glasses that now exist.
“Muse is gonna be everywhere,” confirms Himel. “Muse is gonna be on all equipment that we make.”
The throw for Muse in your glasses is that your AI aide volition improved recall your environment and do things on your behalf. During a demo, I ask a Muse delegate to assistance me buy snacks that volition provision me the finest macromolecule bang for my calorie buck. It can do it, but fails at adding another snack to my cart. Obviously, this is an early-stage demo, and there are continually kinks. I can see the form of how this could be helpful. I can additionally see how it’d be a treasure trove of data for Meta.
Less contentious is a demo of a new FDA-cleared hearing aid feature. I’m asked to deteriorate earplugs to mimic mild hearing loss. Things audio a bit muddled. With the characteristic turned on, higher voices acquire a tinny norm as the AI plant to boost conversational tones in a semi-loud environment. After concerning five minutes, I’ve forgotten I have earplugs in. Adding this capability volition disbursal an additional $149, but I’m told it’s FSA/HSA eligible and designed to be a one-time fee versus an ongoing subscription.
Lastly, there are two insignificant privacy updates — although neither really addresses the fears group have been debating this former summer. The archetypal is bringing the identical “private processing” pipeline used on WhatsApp to wearables. It’s a server-based scheme in which a user’s data is inaccessible to Meta or any another third parties whenever end-to-end encryption isn’t imaginable or on-device handling isn’t mighty enough.
“It’s so that you cognize that your data is fair yours and you’re the lone one who has admission to it. Other companies have taken an method to everything on-device. We do a lot on-device. But the issue alongside fair doing things on-device is that the equipment is lone so mighty and capable. And so if you desire to run additional capable models and get improved functionality, we desire to recommendation the identical privacy protections, but alongside additional capabilities. So that’s what personal handling is,” says Himel.
Meta volition additionally rotate out an update anywhere users can opt out of their ocular data being used for AI training. (Audio-only queries are motionless used for training.)
That’s advancement but doesn’t really location people’s chief concerns concerning the glasses being used to covertly document group in public. Himel additionally acknowledges that the personal handling characteristic is mostly concerning protecting the data of the individual wearing the glasses.
Meta’s goal at Connect this twelvemonth is to bombard everyone alongside options. By the end of the year, Meta expects to have complete 100 versions of its glasses. The additional versions of its glasses, the additional group they’ll reach. The additional AI updates that trickle to all of these iterations, the faster Meta can interest its assertion on the next era of mobile computing.
So goes the theory. But providing hardware options isn’t Meta’s problem. Inside the harmless bubble of Meta’s campus, everyone wears these glasses. The matter is outside Menlo Park, anywhere a vocal contingent isn’t asking for more. They’re asking for less.
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