IT News Editor
Tez Mukamba
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has introduced the company’s first smart glasses with an integrated display, a product he described as a major step toward everyday augmented reality.
The announcement came during the Meta Connect 2025 event at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters on September 17, where Zuckerberg demonstrated the “Meta Ray-Ban Display.”
Wearing what appeared to be ordinary black-framed glasses, Zuckerberg revealed a translucent screen inside the lens. His daily schedule and a prompt for “Ask Meta AI” appeared in his right eye. Using a wrist-worn device called the Neural Band, which responds to finger and hand movements, Zuckerberg controlled the interface, activated music, and replied to messages—all without holding a phone.
According to Meta, the glasses merge real-world vision with digital overlays. They can be controlled by hand gestures, voice commands (“Hey Meta”), or by touching the frame. Features include AI-powered conversations, real-time recipe guidance while cooking, voice amplification in noisy spaces, photo and video capture, live video calls, and instant translation with subtitles.
Priced from $799, the glasses will officially hit stores on September 30. Zuckerberg emphasized that Meta has spent a decade developing wearable AI devices, calling the new product “the only form factor where AI can see and hear what you see and hear.”
Alongside the Ray-Ban Display, Meta also introduced “Vanguard,” a sports-focused pair of smart glasses that tracks training data and offers post-workout insights, as well as upgraded Ray-Ban models with longer battery life and improved cameras.
The launch places Meta in direct competition with Amazon, Google, and Chinese firms like Xreal and Rayneo, all of which are pushing aggressively into the smart glasses market. Amazon is developing AR glasses for consumers and delivery drivers, while Google reintroduced a new version of Google Glass this year after shelving the original in 2015.
Industry analysts see Meta’s unveiling as the strongest signal yet that smart glasses may soon evolve into the next-generation device to rival smartphones, with big tech companies racing to dominate the emerging market.
