At a yearly developer show its parent company calls MetaFest, Meta was rocking the notion that smart glasses can move from the realm of concept to daily companion, with the new Ray-Ban Display and an ingenious wrist-worn controller designed to turn subtle finger twitches into text.
In addition to a refreshed Ray-Ban Meta and an Oakley model, with enhanced support for various sport-first apps, the company also outlined a more well-defined vision for AI wearables — one that leans toward glanceable computing and hands-free controls over yet another screen in your pocket.
Ray-Ban Display and the Neural Band are the big swing
The Meta Ray-Ban Display is the company’s most ambitious pair of glasses yet: A tiny display on the right lens shows apps, directions and notifications without obscuring your view. What feels genuinely new about it is the addition of the Neural Band, a screenless wristband that measures tiny electrical signals in your forearm through surface electromyography (sEMG). It’s the first mainstream effort to commercialize the muscle-signal tech Meta bought with CTRL-Labs, and it finally brings smart glasses a real input system that doesn’t involve screaming voice commands into public. Also excellent.
You can, in effect, “write” replies to a WhatsApp message by copying the grip of a pen and sketching letters in midair, or flick through cards with tiny finger swipes. Unlike camera-based hand tracking, sEMG is also fully pocketable, and less socially embarrassing than waving at imaginary UI. That could be a game changer for accessibility and for on-the-go use — say, while commuting, cooking a meal or riding a bike — when voice or touch isn’t convenient.
The Display leans heavily on Meta’s own ecosystem at launch, but it requires third-party depth to avoid novelty status: messaging, maps, fitness, payments and workplace tools.
Meta is aware of it; the company positioned the Display as a platform, not simply eyewear. On price, you’re looking at a premium play here: $799 with the Neural Band — an indication that Meta is positioning this as a type of flagship for early adopters rather than something mass market people will be picking up for stocking stuffers.
Second‑gen Ray‑Ban Meta glasses receive practical upgrades
Meta also updated the Ray-Ban Meta that launched its push into glasses. The new version has twice the battery life, up to eight hours of mixed use; records Ultra HD 3K that is two times as sharp as before, and keeps the same frames. That’s also some significant quality-of-life improvements for creators and commuters who need reliable recording without babysitting a charger.
Two software features stand out. The feature, Conversation Focus, leverages those open-ear speakers to emphasize the voice in front of you directly — a more intelligent take on ambient audio that could make for less chaotic casual chats when done in noisy places. As the glasses’ camera and microphones allow, Live AI — the context-sensitive assistant Meta attempted to demo on stage — can offer real-time advice. The company admits for now that this mode is energy-hungry, and will last only for very short sessions in the beginning, though they plan to optimize it so that the assistant can go from wake-word to actually always-ready. The second‑gen Ray‑Ban Meta begins at $379, and despite publishing no sales numbers so far, it claims to have sold two million of the first‑gen devices, something of a rare bright spot in a nascent category many analysts still classify as “early innings.”
Oakley Meta Vanguard makes the athlete case
If the Display is the moonshot, the Oakley Meta Vanguard is that killer app. Constructed like performance eyewear (single-wraparound lens with a centered camera), it makes optical and aerodynamic sense when you go fast. The glasses record up to 3K video from a 12‑megapixel sensor with a 122‑degree field of view and the open-ear speakers pump out music without silencing your environment.
They come with an IP67 rating for dust and water, and pair with the platforms athletes actually use, like Strava or Garmin, to share real-time stats without needing to reach for a phone. Battery life is calibrated for long listening sessions — up to nine hours, or about six hours with continuous music — and the charging case adds roughly 36 more hours, with a quick charge to hit 50% in about 20 minutes. For a price of $499, the Vanguards are what finally make “smart glasses” seem less like a tech demo and more like better bike, run and ski days.
A live demo wobble highlights the hard parts
Meta’s on-stage cooking demo, in which a jumpy assistant misread context and delivered overlapping instructions, did get some laughs — but it also illustrated just how difficult wearable AI can be. Contextual comprehension, latency and battery — all of it collides when you’re trying to process live video and language on the fly. Reliability will have to move from “cool when it works” to “dependable every time,” and as much for the modeling and on‑device optimization, gloriously abstracted away from the user’s point of view — as for radios or cloud backends. The good: even a sloppy demo shows the right ambition — hands-free guidance that is actually helpful in the moment.
VR took a backseat, but platform story expanded
There was no new Quest headset this time, and only a small handful of VR updates: Hyperscape tools for creating more photorealistic spaces. That soft VR rhythm is my hint that Meta is channeling more of its short‑term innovation through glasses and AI, where the company can tap into WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger at global scale. It also distributes the cost of Reality Labs’ long‑term R&D — an arm with multi‑billion‑dollar operating losses, according to Meta’s financial reports — across products that ordinary people might wear all day.
The takeaway: everyday AI, worn not held
Smartphones won by being effortless. Meta’s wager is that AI glasses can be even lighter touch: glance to see what you need, gesture in reply and go. The Ray‑Ban Display plus Neural Band is the most aggressive expression of that yet, the second‑gen Ray‑Ban Meta makes it real, and the Oakley Vanguard lands with killer (vertical) style. The ingredients are there; now Meta has to show that the assistant is trustworthy, the privacy narrative holds water and the app platform materializes. If those all come together, this lineup could be the time smart glasses ceased being a novelty and became routine.