Meta Adds Camera-Free AI Glasses to a Lineup That Still Includes Recording

Meta now has two answers to what smart glasses should do in public: a new pair that cannot take photos or video, and upgraded glasses that still can. Announced at Meta Connect on Wednesday, the lineup also includes lightweight VR glasses designed to shift the computer and battery into a separate pocket-sized device. The products address different uses, but the camera-free model arrives amid concern about people being recorded by glasses they may not recognize as cameras.

What the camera-free pair keeps

The Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses drop image and video capture but retain microphones and speakers. Wearers can use them for music, calls and Meta’s AI assistant. That makes them an audio-first alternative to Meta’s camera glasses, not a pair of ordinary frames: a person nearby may still be within range of the microphones when the wearer uses those features.

Meta offers the Audio glasses in Clubmaster and Burbank styles. WIRED puts their weight at 43 grams and says Meta rates the battery for up to 12 hours per charge, or up to 48 hours with the charging case. The $349 glasses are available to preorder and are scheduled to ship October 10. Those battery figures are Meta’s estimates, not a measure of how long every wearer will get.

The camera remains in Gen 3

Meta has not replaced its recording glasses with the Audio model. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 still has a 12-megapixel camera and can capture 3K video. It starts at $449 and is available now. Meta rates its battery for up to nine hours, compared with up to 12 hours for the camera-free pair. Gen 3 also adds a six-microphone array intended to reduce background noise and a Hearing Enhancement feature that boosts speech and nearby audio.

The distinction matters beyond the buyer’s choice of features. Camera-equipped glasses have drawn criticism over their ability to record people nearby. Meta says its smart glasses flash an LED while recording and that it has improved detection of attempts to tamper with that warning, including during livestreams. The Audio model takes the camera out of the equation; the Gen 3 model continues to rely on a recording indicator and safeguards around it.

A lighter device, with weight moved elsewhere

The VR glasses pursue a different problem: making a headset less heavy on the face. The glasses weigh 100 grams, but connect by cable to a 300-gram computing puck that contains the processor and battery. Meta says moving those parts off the head makes the glasses five times lighter than Quest 3. The comparison concerns the weight worn on the head, not the combined weight of everything a user carries.

Inside the glasses is a 5K micro-OLED display. They run software from the Quest library and support multiple virtual windows, computer-display mirroring, eye tracking and hand gestures. That gives the lighter design a route to existing Quest content as well as screen-based work. Meta says the device will cost $1,299.99 and become available in North America, Europe and Asia from spring 2027. For now, that release and its proposed uses remain plans rather than an everyday test of the design.

The display pair crosses borders

Meta also widened access to an existing product, rather than introducing another new pair. Its Ray-Ban Display glasses, which put a virtual display in the right lens, went on sale in the UK and Canada on September 23 for £749 and CA$1,149. Sales in France, Germany and Italy are scheduled for October 13 at €899. The rollout puts the display model outside the US for the first time, while the new VR glasses remain months from their planned release.