Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses Almost Wowed Me

Smart glasses finally seem like they’re inching beyond gimmick territory. But following a hands-on demo with the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and a look at an unreleased input feature, I left thinking less about “if” these will supplant portions of my phone and more about “when.”

A Real Display You Really Want to Look At

The headliner is a full-color in-lens display that resides in the right eye. It’s not a clunky optical block melded to your face, it’s discreet enough that those around you won’t realize you’re on a video call or browsing through a message thread. In my testing, text was sharp, UI elements were legible and short-form video looked surprisingly good.

Importantly, the display allows you to preserve context. And rather than always looking down into a slab of glass, it helps you stay in the moment and keeps handy the glanceable bits you might need — directions, or notifications, or captions on Instagram; just a little quick control to get stuff done on your screen. And that move, small as it may sound, changes behavior faster than any spec sheet claim.

The Neural Wristband Enables Silent Control

It is this integration with a neural wristband that makes the system feel invisible. The band reads “microgestures” from your wrist with electromyography to interpret the signals into commands. A pinch chooses, a fist bounces back and forth, a gentle swipe skims. I could tap and pinch while my hand was buried in a sleeve and hit every action.

Meta’s Reality Labs has shown off EMG for years, and the implementation here is finally reaching the point where it’s reliable enough to use every day. There’s a learning curve — a bit of trackpad muscle memory to develop — but we’re talking minutes, not days. The payoff is tremendous: you engage and connect without signaling that you are “on a device.”

The Unreleased Handwriting Trick Closes the Deal

The biggest standout in my demo was an as-yet-unreleased handwriting gesture, so you can “write” messages in the air. You can write letters using tiny finger gestures and the system turns them into text on the fly. I tested it with both print and cursive; the recognition stayed up to date and auto-corrected meaningfully without significantly oversteering my intention.

As it’s just kind of a mirror image of how we already write, it felt immediately and intuitively natural faster than any other input. This could turn smart glasses from a novelty into a utility for swift responses to messages, search requests or notes taken during meetings. As is typical with any prerelease feature, expect some tweaking before it ships, but the core experience is already pretty compelling.

AI Features That Appear Directly in Your Field of View

The other pillar is Meta’s multimodal assistant. Pose a question as to its name or classification, and you hear the answer while a labeled card pops into view. Ask for a recipe while cooking and you get ingredient cards and instructions that can be thumbed through hands-free. Real-time captions that overlaid the world didn’t read merely as a demo-friendly feature — they were just plain helpful in a noisy environment.

I even attempted generating images on the fly. So now it’s more showpiece than necessity, but the immediacy shows where creative prompts can go when your camera, context and output all occupy the same room. Voice activation can be started with a double thumb tap, Meta says keeping the interactions discreet.

For those who are privacy skeptics, there are trade-offs. Processing can include cloud services, and capture signs count. Meta has promised clearer LEDs and guardrails, but the responsibility will always be divided between design and user behavior. The trend is promising; vigilance is still required.

Design, Comfort, and the Practical Battery Reality

Looks matter with eyewear. These frames are thicker than your average Ray-Bans, but they still read as statement glasses rather than sci-fi props. The pair I sampled was right in line with my everyday thick frames, and the fit didn’t squeeze onto the bridge of my nose or unnerve my ears during long wear.

On paper, the glasses weigh 69 grams versus an estimated 52 grams on last-generation smart frames, and Meta rates up to six hours of mixed use. Your mileage may vary depending on screen-on time, photographic and AI requests. The wristband is no worse than a tight fitness band, and you feel it but not in an abrasive way.

Can It Be a Replacement for Parts of Your Phone?

During the demo, I managed most of what I’d normally do on my phone: responding to messages, queuing up some music, checking my social feeds and snapping some photos (including taking a video call). The fact that the display and EMG input kept interactions ambient meant I was interacting with/engaged by the room, rather than getting lost in a screen.

And that industry analyses from groups like Data.ai show that people are spending hours each day in mobile apps, so even recuperating a small slice of that attention is significant. They’re not going to be a replacement for a phone, per se, but for looking up and quick capture they already feel quicker and nicer than pulling out one of those handsets.

Price, Access, and Who Should Consider Buying These

At $799 this is an early adopter purchase. Meta is guiding buyers through appointment-based demos, and it’s no wonder: You have to feel the wristband and see the display to understand. If you’re interested in the post-smartphone trajectory or exist in messages, navigation and captions, the case is stronger than any spec sheet would tell you.

Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth has suggested that the neural band might develop toward watch-like capability, and that roadmap tracks with what I saw: discreet control via wristband, useful visuals, and AI transplanted into your point of view. After this interview, I’m pretty much sold. If I got the handwriting feature and a smidgen more of battery life, maybe I wouldn’t turn back.