Meta’s first smart glasses to sport an integrated display will apparently be a pair of Ray-Bans, and they seem to have leaked out a little early. They can overlay directions, translations, and Meta AI prompts directly into the right lens. First spotted by UploadVR, the clip (apparently created by Meta itself) shows an almost invisible HUD triggered through voice and controlled via a wrist device.
What the leaked promo video reveals about Meta’s glasses
The video shows a monocular right display, with on-glass cards enabling turn-by-turn directions, instant sign translation, and conversational access to Meta AI. Importantly, the on-lens imagery is not visible to those looking at the wearer, suggesting a waveguide-style combiner or other optical trick that reduces light leak.
- What the leaked promo video reveals about Meta’s glasses
- One Step Beyond Today’s Camera-Only Model
- EMG Wristband: The Quiet Input Breakthrough
- The Price, the Positioning and What It Means
- Optics, Battery and Privacy: The Trade-Offs
- Competitive landscape for lightweight display glasses
- What to watch at Connect for Meta’s smart glasses
The branding corresponds to the Ray-Ban tie-up behind Meta’s existing camera-and-audio glasses. Internally, the project is referred to by the codename “Hypernova,” a name that had been bandied about in developer talk for some time.
One Step Beyond Today’s Camera-Only Model
Meta’s current Ray-Ban smart glasses capture and listen — hands-free photo and video, open-ear audio, and voice assistant interface — but they do not display context in the wearer’s view. The inclusion of a display raises the device from “smart audio with a camera” to something closer in spirit to old Google Glass and current lightweight AR viewers like Xreal, but still in eyewear form factor.
That background also helps to explain the inevitable compromises. Using a single-lens display helps keep weight, battery drain, and cost down. It also reflects an information-first design: glanceable cards, not full-scene AR occlusion or 3D graphics you’d see in heftier headsets.
EMG Wristband: The Quiet Input Breakthrough
The promo video (below) demonstrates using an add-on wristband, enabling stealthy finger-pointing for scrolling, typing, and messaging. That syncs with electromyography (EMG) research that Meta’s Reality Labs has previewed since acquiring the startup CTRL-Labs. EMG translates the small electrical signals in your forearm into digital commands, offering discreet, precise control when sound isn’t preferable and touchscreen real estate is at a premium.
If Meta does ship EMG as a default controller, it would be among the first mainstream wearables to bring neural interfaces to market at consumer scale. That could be a bigger leap than the display itself, toward genuinely ambient computing — glance, twitch, done.
The Price, the Positioning and What It Means
Bloomberg reported an anticipated starting price of about $800 for the display-sporting device. That is well above the existing Ray-Ban Meta glasses but way lower than mixed-reality headsets. Compared with computer hardware, the pricing implies a premium accessory strategy: an everyday-fashion-forward device that does 80/20 duty for quick tasks (rifling through maps, translators, and messaging) without the heft of a visor.
UploadVR also pointed out another product in the extended footage: Oakley sunglasses that resemble its Sphaera line with a camera smack dab in the center, intended for recording high-impact sports.
These, it seems, pass on the display and emphasize Meta’s bifurcated approach — performance capture for athletes, a display-forward model for utility in the mainstream.
Optics, Battery and Privacy: The Trade-Offs
A monocular HUD suggests a limited field of view, designed for clarity and comprehension rather than immersion. That should mean better daylight readability and battery life, if the microdisplay and waveguide are efficient. Look for conservative brightness and thoughtful UI design to keep you from getting struck by an oncoming bus while walking or behind the wheel of your car.
On privacy, certainly the on-lens image not being visible to passersby is a plus, as is a visible recording indicator for the camera — something that’s standard on Meta’s current frames. Yet regulators and venues have long been uneasy with camera glasses. Clear capture indicators and strong on-device privacy controls will be crucial for widespread adoption.
Competitive landscape for lightweight display glasses
One new category is lightweight display glasses. Device makers have largely bifurcated between audio-first camera frames, on the one hand, and cabled AR viewers that tether to a phone or PC. If Meta can achieve a wearable HUD with EMG input, it might help establish a middle ground — more dynamic than audio frames, more wearable than tethered AR.
Analyst firms like IDC have said that comfort, battery life, and price are still holding mass-market AR glasses back. By anchoring fashion partnerships with Ray-Ban and Oakley, Meta is attacking one of the thorniest problems first: getting people to actually want to wear the hardware.
What to watch at Connect for Meta’s smart glasses
Key specs to consider include:
- The field of view of the display, peak brightness, and resolution
- Claims around battery life in real use
- Durability and water resistance
- How deeply Meta AI is integrated for on-the-go tasks without needing to pull out a phone
The range of EMG input — texting, media controls, app switching — will also give a sense of just how “glance-and-go” these glasses really are.
If the leaked video matches the chewy center that is core to the product, Meta is about to take smart glasses from passive capture to active computing. The company doesn’t even need the full scope of AR in order to make an impact — just a comfortable pair of glasses that consistently puts useful information at your fingertips, and that makes it possible for our day-to-day interactions with technology to feel invisible.