Meta unveils AI-powered smart glasses with display and neural wristband
at Connect event
[September 18, 2025] By
BARBARA ORTUTAY
MENLO PARK, California (AP) — Meta's newest artificial-intelligence
powered smart glasses include a tiny display and can be controlled by a
neural wristband that lets you control it with “barely perceptible
movements,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday.
Zuckerberg continues to evangelize the glasses as the next step in
human-computer interactions — beyond keyboards, touch screens or a
mouse.
“Glasses are the only form factor where you can let AI see what you see,
hear what you hear,” and eventually generate what you want to generate,
such as images or video, Zuckerberg said, speaking at the tech giant's
Menlo Park, California, headquarters.
The glasses, called Meta Ray-Ban Display, will be available Sept. 30 and
cost $799.
Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, said Meta's latest reveal
is “reminiscent of when the Apple Watch first debuted as an alternative
to the smartphone.”
“But what these glasses do is bring more utility to consumers in a
single device. Unlike VR headsets, glasses are an everyday,
non-cumbersome form factor," the analyst added. "However, the onus is on
Meta to convince the vast majority of people who don’t own AI glasses
that the benefits outweigh the cost. The good news? There’s a lot of
runway to earn market share.”

Meta also updated its original, display-less Ray-Ban glasses to have a
better battery life, which Meta says lasts eight hours with typical use,
nearly twice as long as the previous model. An upcoming feature, called
“conversation focus,” will amplify the voice of the person the user is
speaking to and help drown out background noise. This will be available
on the older version of the glasses too, as a software update,
Zuckerberg said. Meta also added German and Portuguese to the gadget's
live translation capabilities. The new model costs $379, and the
previous model now costs $299.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears artificial intelligence-powered smart
glasses as he speaks during the company's Connect developer
conference Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP
Photo/Nic Coury)
 The company also unveiled a new set
of AI-powered glasses for athletes, called the Oakley Meta Vanguard,
which Meta says is specifically for “high-intensity sports” and can
be integrated with Garmin devices to give users feedback about their
workouts such as heart rate and stats. For instance, a runner could
ask “Hey Meta, what's my heart rate?” and get a voice response
through the glasses. It also auto-captures video clips when the user
hits key milestones or ramps up their heart rate, speed or
elevation. The glasses will cost $499 and go on sale Oct. 21.
While the company has not disclosed sales figures of the glasses, it
said they have been more popular than expected.
“For more than a decade, Zuckerberg’s long-term vision with Oculus
and the Metaverse has been that glasses and headsets will blur the
lines between physical and digital worlds,” Forrester analyst Thomas
Husson said. “After many false starts, the momentum to move beyond
an early adopter niche is now.”
Meta teased a prototype for Orion, which Zuckerberg called “the most
advanced glasses the world has ever seen,” last year — but these
holographic augmented reality glasses are still years away from
being on the market.
Like other tech companies, Meta has been making massive investments
in AI development and hiring top talent at eye-popping compensation
levels.
In July, Zuckerberg posted a note detailing his views on “personal
superintelligence” that he believes will “help humanity accelerate
our pace of progress.” While he said that developing
superintelligence is now “in sight,” he did not detail how this will
be achieved or exactly what “superintelligence” means. The abstract
idea of “superintelligence” is what rival companies call artificial
general intelligence, or AGI.
Zuckerberg has said he believes AI glasses are going to be “the main
way we integrate superintelligence.”
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