Meta Drops the Camera With Its First Audio-Only AI Glasses
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If your glasses have no camera, nobody can accuse you of secretly filming them: Meta has just unveiled Ray-Ban Meta Audio, its first AI glasses with no camera at all. The frames bring music, phone calls and the Meta AI assistant to your ears hands-free, and they arrive at a moment when criticism of camera glasses is louder than ever.
The company presented the new models at its Connect developer conference, alongside a wide range of other frames developed in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. By the end of the year, Meta plans to offer more than 100 different glasses options across Ray-Ban, Oakley and Meta Glasses, according to its official announcement.
43 Grams and Up to 12 Hours of Battery Life
Meta says audio has been the most popular feature of its glasses since day one. Ray-Ban Meta Audio packs speakers, microphones and AI into the lightest and slimmest frame in the lineup so far. At 43 grams, the glasses are designed for all-day wear. Users can listen to music and podcasts, take calls and talk to the AI assistant. Meta puts battery life at up to 12 hours, with the included charging case adding up to 48 more. Independent tests are not yet available.
The audio glasses come in two new styles: the retro-inspired Clubmaster and the rectangular Burbank, in 23 color and lens combinations in total. Both support prescription lenses. Pre-orders are already open in the United States, with shipping starting in mid-October. Prices start at $349, or roughly €300. Meta has not yet announced European pricing or a launch date for Europe.
Muse Turns the Glasses Into a Personal Agent
Meta is also bringing its personal AI agent Muse to its glasses. Muse is designed to take tasks off users’ plates, keep track of appointments and turn long-term goals into concrete action plans, all without reaching for a smartphone. For glasses with neither camera nor display, voice becomes the central interface.
Camera Models Stay in the Lineup
Meta is keeping the camera elsewhere in its range, though. At the same event, the company introduced Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3), the third generation of its best-selling AI glasses. They shoot with a 12-megapixel camera in 3K resolution, offer an hour more battery life than their predecessor (up to nine hours), six microphones and a new action button for Meta AI. As with every previous generation, a built-in LED light is meant to signal to people nearby when photos or videos are being taken. Prices start at $449, or around €385.
Meta also added new models to its Meta Glasses brand, including a collection designed with K-pop star LISA, a new colorway for the Kylie Jenner edition and its most affordable pair yet, a Meta Adventurer starting at $249 (about €215). The company is expanding distribution as well: in Europe, Oakley Meta and Ray-Ban Meta are set to launch later this year in markets including Poland and Portugal.
ZuckOff Sounds the Alarm on Camera Glasses
The camera-free model lands amid a growing debate over privacy. One app drawing particular attention is ZuckOff, built by Polish software developer Paweł Szydłowski. As Trending Topics reported, the app picks up the Bluetooth signals broadcast by smart glasses, matches them against a catalog of known devices and warns users when a pair of Ray-Ban Meta or Oakley Meta glasses is nearby. It also estimates the distance and is available for free on iOS and Android. ZuckOff cannot tell whether someone is actually recording, however; it only detects that a pair of glasses is present.
Szydłowski says he was prompted by videos of people being filmed without their knowledge. As a society, he told Business Insider, we have the right to at least know that someone is recording. The name is meant as a message to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ZuckOff is not the only tool of its kind: the open-source Android app Nearby Glasses takes a similar approach and has passed 100,000 downloads, according to TechRadar.
Pushback against camera glasses has surfaced in several places recently. Some cinemas, schools and pubs in the UK have banned them, The Next Web reports. Meta itself recently disabled thousands of glasses whose recording LED had been tampered with, according to Digital Trends. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth has defended the design, saying the camera was built to be noticed by the people around the wearer.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, however, the audio glasses are not a response to the backlash. The Meta CEO said around Connect that the model had been in development for a very long time. From the very first camera glasses, he argued, Meta built in features that no phone or other camera offers, above all the light that signals when someone is recording. Only about one-tenth of 1 percent of users had tampered with that LED, Zuckerberg said. Ahead of the conference, Meta had also avoided linking the audio glasses to the privacy debate, focusing instead on their longer battery life, TechRadar reports. Either way, the company now offers an alternative for the first time to people who are uncomfortable with the camera or who find themselves in places where camera glasses are unwelcome.
Competition in Smart Glasses
Audio-only glasses are familiar territory. Amazon has sold its Echo Frames, with built-in speakers and the Alexa voice assistant, for several years, and companies such as Solos offer AI glasses without a camera or with an optional camera module. In the segment of smart glasses with cameras and displays, Google and Samsung are working on models based on Android XR, and Apple has long been rumored to be developing glasses of its own. So far, Meta’s Ray-Ban models remain the clear leader in the category.
