POLICY · COMPANIES · #913
Meta announces camera-free Ray‑Ban Meta Audio glasses
At Connect 2026 Meta unveiled Ray‑Ban Meta Audio, its first camera‑free, audio‑only smart glasses made with EssilorLuxottica that support music, calls, speech translation and interaction with Meta’s personal AI assistant Muse; they start at $349 and are available for preorder on Oct. 13. Meta also previewed next‑generation camera-equipped Ray‑Ban Meta (Gen 3) models with a 12 MP camera and up to nine hours battery life.
KEY POINTS
- At Connect 2026 Meta unveiled Ray‑Ban Meta Audio, its first camera‑free, audio‑only smart glasses made with EssilorLuxottica that support music, calls, speech translation and interaction with Meta’s personal AI assistant Muse; they start at $349 and are available for preorder on Oct.
- Meta also previewed next‑generation camera-equipped Ray‑Ban Meta (Gen 3) models with a 12 MP camera and up to nine hours battery life.
- The camera‑free design addresses privacy and reputation concerns around recording‑enabled smart glasses while expanding Meta’s Muse ecosystem and competing with audio assistants like Apple’s AirPods.
WHY IT MATTERS
The camera‑free design addresses privacy and reputation concerns around recording‑enabled smart glasses while expanding Meta’s Muse ecosystem and competing with audio assistants like Apple’s AirPods.
SOURCES & TIMELINE
3Confirming earlier reports , Meta announced its first pair of camera-free AI glasses, the clunkily named Ray-Ban Meta Audio, at its Connect 2026 conference on Wednesday. Designed to combat criticism around the more malicious use cases for AI glasses, which saw them nicknamed “pervert glasses” by some, the new devices will be audio-only, offering the ability to listen to music and podcasts, take calls, translate speec…
After months of controversy about the privacy of its smart glasses , Meta has unveiled the next iteration of its product lineup. At its Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced all the new glasses the company is putting out into the world. Its popular Meta Ray-Ban glasses are now in their third generation, but two new models steal the show: a powerful, slimmed-down version of Meta's Quest head…
Audio-only Ray-Bans have arrived alongside more camera-equipped glasses. What’s missing? Privacy controls to address the ‘perv glasses’ backlash. Walking around Meta Connect 2026, everyone’s sporting smart glasses in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes. It’s a marked difference here, a tech bubble where “pervert glasses” are not a concern. Outside Connect, the public backlash against wearable surveillance tech —…