• Anker claims its new Eufy S4 video doorbell is the first with VR viewing
• The device has a 180-degree field of view, and uses AI tracking to follow subjects and frame them
• It's set to ship at the end of October, for $299 (about £230 / AU$430)

Anker has unveiled its Edge 5.0 lineup of smart home devices, but the new Eufy Video Doorbell S4 that apparently comes with VR viewing of who's at your door is the latest inductee to the weird tech hall of fame.

The device, which also comes with the Chime 2, is available to pre-order now and is expected to ship at the end of October, but it’s quite a costly addition to your smart home setup priced at $299.99. Still, despite its price and arguably unnecessary headline feature, its expansive roster of features could putit among the best video doorbells.

Aside from being subscription-free with 4GB of built-in memory — which you’d hope for given its asking price — the device’s VR viewing sets the S4 apart from rivals such as the Philips 7000 Series, our overall best pick. According to Anker, the S4 is the world’s first video doorbell with such viewing capabilities, and it sounds pretty insane, but very much impressive.

When the doorbell detects someone at your door, you’ll get a videocall-like notification from the Anker Eufy app which will open a video 180-degree field of view (horizontally and vertically). This gives you an ultra-wide view of the front of your home at all times, removing the need for additional security cameras.

Once you’ve launched the live view in the Anker Eufy app, you can move your smartphone — or VR headset, naturally — to look in different directions and see things from different angles. Clever, right? But that’s not the only smart feature.

As far as camera tracking goes, the S4 records 3K video in 3072 x 3072 keeping a subject’s entire body visible, while Eufy’s AI-powered OmniTrack technology locks onto the person in the frame, following them as they move around. The doorbell then uses Auto-Framing to crop the panoramic view, keeping them in the center at all times.

Detection accuracy, smart hub compatibility, and more

With the new Eufy video doorbell, Anker has put a huge amount of effort into ensuring the device is capable and sensitive enough to monitor your home’s entrance.

A common mishap with video doorbells is false alerts, sending a wave of worry through you when there was nothing to really worry about. To reduce these false alarms, the S4 uses a combination of radar for longer-range detection, while sporting dual PIR sensors to help differentiate human movement closer to your front door.

When it comes to smart home compatibility, Anker’s new video doorbell can be integrated into your existing ecosystem whether you’re running on Alexa, Google Home, or Apple HomeKit, though there are a few things to keep in mind.

For those of you using Apple HomeKit, you’ll need to have the Eufy HomeBaseS380 hub to get set up. Additionally, VR viewing and OmniTrack is only available through the Anker Eufy app, so third-party platforms will only show a fixed live view.

Since the Oculus Quest 2, the VR industry has been chasing a high point that seems impossible to re-summit — let alone surpass. I mean, how can you compete with popularity propelled by global pandemic-caused lockdowns and ultra-low costs when people are no longer trapped in their homes and facing down RAM-crisis-fuelled tech price hikes?

You can’t. But the Meta VR Glasses give me hope that'll change, that VR is on an upward swing again.

The Meta Quest 3 tried its best, but improved specs, full-color mixed reality, and incredible exclusives like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Marvel’s Deadpool VR seemingly weren’t enough of a draw for people. I loved the system, but checking the most recent (August 2026) Steam Hardware Survey (which should include the most dedicated, most likely to upgrade players, as the Quest systems aren’t native PCVR headsets), the Quest 2 still narrowly tops the list despite being pulled from shelves over two years ago and being replaced close to three years ago by the Quest 3.

The Apple Vision Pro was much hyped before launch, but it seemingly had even less staying power than the Quest 3 thanks to its extremely high price. Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, as much as I like it, is a gadget I wouldn’t be surprised if even most techie people didn’t know it existed.

You could do a whole analytical breakdown on why each device struggled to hit the mark, but as I see it, there’s one key issue: value.

The Quest 2 was incredible value. At £299 / $299 / AU$479 it’s approaching tech impulse-buy territory. You can grab it on a whim and be fairly confident you’ll get enough use out of it to justify the price whether you’re stuck inside because of Covid-19 or not — even just as a novelty you only get out on occasion, or to see your nan get wowed by some simple demo app.

At $499.99 / £479.99 / AU$799.99 (its original launch price), the Meta Quest 3 is instantly a much harder value proposition to justify. For a start, you need to spend a lot more time using the Quest 3 before it becomes ‘worth it.’ But for gamers, the headset costs as much as a PS5 disc edition — or a digital-only PS5 plus a game or two — and even as a VR enjoyer, it’s easy to understand why people would favour the Sony console and its incredible performance and game catalogue to fill their time.

It’s also still a bit too bulky to wear all day every day for productivity tasks — something Meta was ironing out at the time on the software side too. Big screen entertainment wasn’t ideal either — the Quest 3 lacked many streaming services, and the few it did have often relied on terrible apps that were terrible to use and didn’t support high-quality streams.

The Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR headset solved some of these issues, but they didn’t address headset bulk — the Apple Vision Pro actually weighs a good chunk more than a Quest 3 or Quest 2 — and they’re also a lot more expensive (costing $3,499 / £3,199 / AU$5,999 and $1,799 / £1,699 respectively).

To get your money’s worth, you’d ideally use these headsets every day to help maximise your productivity across app windows, and to kick back with some entertainment most evenings — or at least fairly regularly. But as someone who tried doing this for a week with the Galaxy XR (the lighter of the two), it’s simply not a comfortable enough experience — my neck wanted to give up after a day and a half.

They’re both great for using from time to time, but they cost far too much to be something you wear infrequently.

Emerging from the ashes

The Meta VR Glasses, however, hit the nail on the head in (almost) every regard. At only around 3.52oz /100g, they are a device you can easily wear for hours, and Meta has finally improved its entertainment and productivity software support.

The only notable negative aspect is the price. $1,299 (pricing TBC in other regions) is cheaper than its current rivals, but still four times more expensive than the Oculus Quest 2. With its weight, I can definitely see myself wearing this headset often enough to make that price justified, but for less VR-forward folks it might not seem that way — especially after our recent flops.

I hope they can give it a try, however, as I fell in love with the Meta VR Glasses instantly, and I expect plenty more fans will materialize once they launch in 2027.

Hardware aside, I’m also simply glad to see the return of VR as a descriptor.

I get that technically the VR Glasses are a mixed reality device, but MR never really took off as a descriptor (it’s quite similar to the shortening of mister, Mr), and I don’t love XR — it’s too generic to really mean anything because it includes AR, VR, MR, and all different ways these technologies can manifest.

VR headsets are a known quantity, and the VR Glasses do feel like the spiritual successor to the Quest headsets Meta and Oculus pioneered. It’s a small thing, but I like that VR has returned — rising from the ashes in a manner that feels appropriate for the Project Phoenix device.

Rebuilding what it broke?

The elephant in the room for many will be that Meta contributed somewhat to the sense of doom and gloom in VR after it made sweeping cuts through its Reality Labs teams and first-party development studios — canning projects in the process.

We’ve also seen third-party VR studios close or downsize since Meta’s announcement as it becomes clear VR isn't in quite the boom period it once was. Showcasing Meta's situation was merely part of a bigger trend of VR struggles, rather than an isolated case of awfulness.

It’s clear that VR has been generally struggling, but I’m hopeful the VR Glasses, in conjunction with Xreal Aura (which ticks a lot of the same boxes) and other future headsets / glasses, will help to bring excitement, accessibility, and users back to VR.

We’ll have to wait and see, but I think the future of VR is looking a little brighter again.

One of the advantages of having written about tech for as long as I have is that you start to notice when the same ideas come around decade after decade, in different shapes and sizes. Especially the bad ones.

12 years ago Google invented something called Google Glass — a set of glasses complete with a camera so you could record what you were looking at — and it was so roundly hated by everyone that we all breathed a collective sigh of relief when they went away.

But now it's 2026 and smart glasses are back, powered by AI, and tied in with a world-famous fashion brand, but fundamentally they still have exactly the same problem, which still hasn't been fixed: they enable people to record other people without their consent.

The problem is that none of this should have come as a surprise. The privacy risks of putting a camera on somebody's face weren't merely predictable — they were predicted. Women were raising concerns about men using Google Glass to record them more than a decade ago.

And yet here we are again.

The curious case of Google Glass

Let’s remind ourselves what happened the first time that smart glasses arrived.

Google Glass arrived in 2013. It puts a small heads-up display and camera on the wearer's face, allowing them to take photos and record video from their point of view. Almost immediately, privacy became one of the defining controversies around it.

By 2014, women were explicitly raising issues of abuse. Wired reported that women were particularly interested in technology that could detect and block Glass because of concerns about men covertly recording them in nightclubs. "Even if they didn’t know if the device was recording, they felt threatened by its presence", said Oliver, the creator of the detection device.

Google Glass wearers were being called “Glassholes,” businesses were banning the device, and Google itself was publishing etiquette guidance because of complaints about people creepily filming others without permission.

By 2015, consumer Glass effectively died. Privacy wasn't its only problem — its price, awkward appearance, and lack of compelling everyday uses all played a part — but by January 2015 Google had stopped selling the consumer Explorer Edition. Glass survived as an enterprise product before Google finally discontinued the Enterprise Edition in 2023.

Smart glasses didn’t die with Google Glass. They had simply retreated to a lab to lick their wounds and wait for that vital next piece of technology that would make them relevant again. That technology was AI. In 2023, AI-powered smart glasses, partnered with leading fashion brands, started to emerge, with Meta leading the charge with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

This time they looked much more like ordinary glasses. Meta had also found the compelling use cases that Google Glass struggled to provide: its glasses could use AI to answer questions about what you were looking at, give you directions, and translate signs and conversations. But they could also still record what, or more importantly, who, you were looking at without needing that person's consent.

It’s like women don’t exist

Frankly, I don’t think Meta should have released them with that ability, but here we are. It’s like we’ve learned nothing from the Google Glass debacle. Almost as soon as the next generation of smart glasses emerged they were being used to harass women and record them without their consent or knowledge.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have been studying hundreds of social-media videos involving smart glasses and found men using them to approach and record women without their knowledge, including at gyms, workplaces and beaches. Australia's eSafety Commissioner says the technology can amplify gendered harms because recording can be almost undetectable, and specifically highlights pickup-artist content in which women often don't know they're being filmed.

The researchers analysed 350 publicly available Instagram videos from 2023–2026. In a subset of covert POV videos, around 60% of interactions were classified as potential harassment. And in about 43% of the videos, women were subjected to further abusive online commentary, sometimes exposing personal information.

These are real victims. CBS interviewed a woman who discovered she'd been secretly recorded only after the resulting video went viral, attracting more than 200,000 views. Her reaction said it all: “I had no say.”

And France has now opened an investigation involving alleged sexual harassment and discreet smart-glasses recording.

I don't think these products were designed to harm women. That's almost the point. Too often, the technology industry seems to design products around what the person using them can do, without giving enough consideration to the person standing on the other side of the technology. And when the potential for abuse disproportionately affects women, that's a particularly serious blind spot. Women have historically been underrepresented in the data and testing used for product design, with designers still describing the male body as the implicit default.

Meta clearly did think about privacy. The glasses have a recording LED specifically designed to tell people nearby when the camera is being used. But if your safeguard against covert recording is a tiny light on the front of the glasses — one that people have found ways to conceal or disable — is that really enough?

Did it consider what happens when a man wearing an almost invisible camera approaches a woman who's alone?

Meta's audio-only smart glasses

Yesterday at Meta Connect, Meta announced a new version of its smart glasses called the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, which don’t have a camera. They got barely a mention in Zuckerberg’s keynote, but I wonder if they were released because of the existential threat to its business that the now commonly used “perv glasses” moniker poses.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio has no camera. You can still listen to music, make calls, translate conversations, and talk to Meta's AI, but the person sitting opposite you no longer needs to wonder whether they're being secretly recorded.

Meta hasn't said the Audio glasses exist because of the privacy backlash, and removing the camera inevitably removes some genuinely useful features too. For visually impaired people in particular, a camera combined with AI can be transformative.

But Ray-Ban Meta Audio proves something important: smart glasses don't have to contain a camera.

Twelve years ago, women were already warning that putting inconspicuous cameras on people's faces could enable men to record them without their knowledge, and today researchers are documenting precisely that behavior.

Google Glass users became known as “Glassholes” because people hated that the person they were talking to was recording them. Twelve years later, we're having the same argument about “perv glasses.”

That's what makes me angry. This wasn't an unforeseeable consequence of some revolutionary new technology. We'd already run this experiment and realized that these should never have got out of the lab in the first place.

Among the host of new products that Meta unveiled at its Connect event this week — an AI Tamagotchi, anyone? — we got the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 smart glasses. Here we're going to break down all the key specs of the new specs, and in particular how they compare to the model that launched this time last year.

In our Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 review, we praised the AI-powered glasses for bringing with them improvements in camera quality, battery life, and design, and there are upgrades to talk about with the third-generation too.

Whether you already own a Gen 2 pair and are thinking of making the switch to the new models, or you're considering getting involved in smart glasses for the first time, here's how the 2025 and 2026 versions compare.

Pricing and design

The Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 are out now and yours for a starting price of $449 / £409 / AU$679, which is a modest price bump over the previous versions. Meta says the overall design is slimmer and more comfortable to wear compared to the Gen 2, though the weights listed on Meta's store suggest there isn't much change there (at least in terms of the Wayfarer, which is the only style carried over).

There are three different styles to choose from. You've got the Wayfarer we saw with Gen 2 (also available in large), and two new additions: the iconic Aviator design, plus the Zena, which Meta describes as "a bold new cat-eye frame that makes a confident statement". A total of 27 lens and color combinations are available across these frame shapes, with colors including Black and Havana (a mix of dark and light brown).

When the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 launched, they were available for $379 / £379 / AU$599 and up, and at the time of writing, that price hasn't dropped with the arrival of the Gen 3 models. All three styles are still available to buy too: the Wayfarer (in standard or large), the cat-eye Skyler, and the more rounded Headliner.

At launch time, Meta mentioned 27 lens and color combinations for the Gen 2 glasses, but those combinations aren't exactly the same as they are for the Gen 3, and they changed over time with seasonal offerings — something that's likely for the new models too. So the takeaway is that there's about the same range of design choice, though the specific options are different based on which generation of smart glasses you choose.

Battery life and specs

You don't want your smart specs dying during the day, and Meta says the Ray-Ban Gen 2 are capable of lasting 8 hours between battery charges. Assuming you take a fully charged case out with you as well, you're getting an extra 48 hours (or six full recharge cycles) on top of that before you need to find a power socket.

With the Ray-Ban Gen 3, Meta is promising up to 9 hours of battery life on a single charge, with an extra 50 hours supplied by the charging case. There's also mention of charging the glasses from zero to 50% in a mere two minutes, which is the same claim made with the previous Gen 2 models.

When it comes to the camera, it's all the same: both the Gen 3 and the Gen 2 have a 12MP ultrawide camera capable of shooting up to 3K resolution video (just be respectful of other people's privacy). There is a boost for voice input though, because the Gen 3 has a 6-mic array compared to the 5-mic array of the Gen 2.

The loudness and bass of the speakers is listed as the same between generations — 76.1 dB(C) — so there's no difference there, while the 32GB of internal storage matches as well. The headline upgrades as far as key details go are better battery life and improved mic inputs, though we're basing that on spec sheets rather than any testing.

Features and AI

In terms of what you can actually do with the Gen 3 smart glasses, everything is more or less the same as before. The only exception is an extra 'action' button you get on the new models, alongside the existing photo/video capture button, which can be customized to launch a specific feature: the AI assistant, sending a text to a favorite contact, or activating the on-board translation, for example.

Besides that, you get access to the same Meta AI on your glasses, and it's the same companion Meta AI app running on your phone too. All the core functions are the same, including audio calls, video calls (where the caller sees what you're seeing), live assistance through the AI about anything you're looking at, and audio playback for your music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

The upgrade isn't quite as dramatic as it was from Gen 1 to Gen 2 — you might remember there were significant improvements to video capture quality, and big leaps in battery life too — so if you already own a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 smart glasses then you don't really need to upgrade immediately, unless you're a big fan of the new designs.

If you're still on the Gen 1 models or you're looking at smart glasses for the first time, however, the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 are a much more compelling proposition. After the latest round of Meta announcements, you've also now got the choice of the Meta VR Glasses and the camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses as well.

I don’t know about you, but with every other ad being for some sports betting or prediction market platform, and every other app store game looking to cram in some kind of gacha system, I’m plenty sick enough of the 'gamblification' creeping into our daily lives.

At the same time, I kinda love Meta’s new blind box Meta Glasses with BlackPink and White Lotus star Lisa.

Call me a hypocrite, but the design collaboration is frankly genius, and while it isn’t for me (nor something I want to be bombarded with), as a one-off experiment, it feels set to be a runaway success.

To catch you up to speed, alongside its new Meta VR Glasses, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 smart specs, and its first-ever cameraless glasses in the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, we were also treated to a new Meta Glasses style at Meta Connect 2026.

The Meta Glasses are Meta’s own-brand smart specs. It still works with EssilorLuxottica experts on the designs, but they aren’t branded as such — making them more accessible as they don’t carry the same price premium a named brand would.

It’s also where Meta has debuted collab designs with celebrities. It kicked things off with Kylie Jenner with the Meta Starfire Kylie Edition shape — they’re much more rounded than anything Meta has released before, though the name always makes me think of the Australian pop singer — and has now announced a partnership with Lisa.

The specs of the Meta Glasses haven’t changed here. They still boast a 12MP ultra-wide camera with a 3K recording resolution, a battery life Meta rates at over eight hours, plus open-ear speakers for listening to music and six microphones for recording audio and taking calls.

Lisa’s glasses differ entirely due to their design. They come with black and pink lens and frame options (clearly inspired by Lisa’s world-famous K-pop group), and Lisa’s star icon on each stem tip.

Importantly, each pair also comes with a random charm — one of 12, two of which are extra rare — of cute dogs cast in different poses and colors. They’re inspired by Lisa’s well-documented love of her pets and blind boxes — herein lies why I love Meta’s approach to add a random element to its specs.

Collaborative designs that incorporate some aspect of the celebrity’s persona are always appreciated by the fans, and Lisa has expressed so much love for random blind boxes that their inclusion here feels like a slam dunk.

Plus, while some charms are a bit more special than others, I personally love all 12, and they’re such a small aspect (and similar enough) that I don’t see anyone being truly devastated whichever one they get — nor needing to seek out all 12 by buying up as many Meta Glasses as possible.

Of course, I expect some new TikTok series will launch where an influencer with money to burn does attempt to open all 12, but outside of a few obsessed edge cases, I see this as a delightful expression of Lisa

If you want to get in on the Meta Glasses Lisa edition randomness, the new specs start at $339 (UK and Australian pricing TBC).

Meta Connect just ended, and the biggest announcement of the night for me was easily the debut of Meta’s VR Glasses — even if they were leaked ahead of schedule by Meta’s own prescription tutorial.

Ahead of their official reveal, I got to spend 30 minutes with the new tech, experiencing a wide range of demos that might have convinced me this isn’t merely Meta’s best VR headset yet — it could be the best VR headset I’ve used yet.

The only downside is we’ll be waiting a little longer to wear it. The headset isn’t due to launch until “Spring 2027” (March, April or May), but at least we know it’ll cost just $1,299 when it does land (price elsewhere TBC).

Slimmer than ever

Let’s start with the design.

Slimmer and lighter than anything that has come before (the actual headset part you wear is down to just around 100g); this headset looks like a pair of glasses. They even swap the headstrap for glasses stems to stay on your head.

The bulk of the weight is instead housed in a puck you carry in your pocket — a lot like the puck used by the Apple Vision Pro or Samsung Galaxy XR. The big difference here is Meta’s isn’t just a battery pack, it also houses all of the headset’s compute. It’s tethered to the headset via an optical cable, but this wire never got in the way while I used the headset — whether I was up and moving, playing a game like Beat Saber Flux, or sitting being productive with multitasking across multiple windows.

The headset can support controllers; however, it doesn’t come with any in the box. Instead, you’ll need to rely on hand controls: either reaching out and grabbing, or the look and pinch controls popularized by Apple’s Vision Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy XR.

Lastly, I should note that, despite being called glasses, this is a headset. They have an opaque front cover that only appears to be see-through to the wearer because of passthrough. This live video feed of the real world isn’t yet perfect (it’s still a little grainy and there’s a slight delay), though it seems at least as good as the competition based on my experience so far.

They do support pescription inserts too. They connect magnetically to the display lenses and don't disrupt the slimness of the headset at all based on my experience.

The device is just so supremely comfortable to wear. My demo was only around 30 minutes, but at one-fifth the weight of a Meta Quest 3 or Samsung Galaxy XR, the difference is immediately noticeable — this is a headset I don’t see myself needing to take off, even after multiple days of working with it on.

Plus, it’s so portable you can easily take this everywhere in whatever bag you have on hand. No dedicated carry case required. I can’t wait to travel with this thing.

An all-round powerhouse

While this can be used for all existing Meta Quest 3-compatible apps (though you will need controllers for those that don’t support hand tracking, either as a new paid add-on or by commandeering your Quest’s handsets), where this headset truly shines is static experiences: productivity and entertainment.

We know VR headsets are excellent for multitasking. You can arrange virtual project app windows around you, and even bring your PC screen into XR to create the perfect setup. Meta’s headset boasts two useful additional features.

First, you aren’t limited to the number of displays your physical setup has when you connect it to your headset. Each laptop or PC can be extended to up to three virtual monitors, a tool that some previous iterations of virtual desktop apps haven’t been able to offer (You could open multiple VR app windows, but only as many connected device windows as you had physical monitors).

Secondly, Meta’s headset can turn any surface into a keyboard. It just scans the surface in front of you — be it a cafe table, a seat tray on a plane, or a bench at the park — and then virtually projects a keyboard and trackpad you can type and swipe on. It works seamlessly. In my demo, I was able to type as swiftly and accurately as I could on a physical accessory, and in terms of portability, this is yet another win for Meta’s VR Glasses.

Moving on to entertainment, it seems Disney Plus’ Apple exclusivity has ended as the app and its library of 3D films are hitting Meta’s new headset. Because it’s an app, you can download content to watch on the go, which includes brand new immersive watching experiences.

While it was still just a demo, I got to experience watching a clip of Avengers: Endgame that extended beyond the screen in a souped-up version of Philips Ambilight.

It’s the scene where Thor is forging his new axe, I was sitting in that same forge. The room lit up and reacted as events unfolded in the film, ending with lightning flying out of the screen as Stormbreaker helped Thor return to full strength. It was a bit gimmicky, but also fun — not something I’d want for every movie, but an experience I’d want when returning to a big tentpole.

All of this content, be it immersive movies, a VR game, or a work document, looks beautiful on the 5K micro-OLED screen. It boasts a 37 pixel-per-degree resolution, which is around the PPD that its rivals, the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, boast (Samsung and Apple haven’t revealed these figures, but they have been estimated during product teardowns).

This is significantly better than the Quest 3’s mere 25PPD, and it meets the standard of being able to deliver the IMAX Enhanced Format — with superb audio and visuals. I got a taste of this in my demo, and I’m keen to experience more.

I need this yesterday

I’m about to jet set to LA for a press trip, and I so desperately wish I could be taking the Meta VR Glasses with me for the flight — both for getting work done and for immersing myself in a movie on a big screen rather than the back of the chair in front of me.

Alas, the VR specs aren’t due to land until 2027, though we know how much they’ll cost: $1,299. Much less than a Vision Pro, or a Galaxy XR, and cheaper than the highest price Xreal has said its Aura glasses — the closest thing I’ve tried to the Meta VR Glasses — could be.

At the time of writing, Meta hasn’t revealed too much in the way of specs (I’m writing this up based on a pre-Connect briefing). The Meta VR Glasses can run any Quest 3 app and can multitask across six windows at once, so it must be at least somewhat capable. I expect it boasts at least 12GB of RAM and the latest Snapdragon XR chipset.

I’m just impressed Meta can commit to such a relatively low price, especially months in advance. There are so many unknowns over trade and RAM demand that we’ve seen companies not reveal prices until as close to the last second as possible. Meta has bucked a trend here, but I expect it would only do so if 100% confident the cost won’t budge — if it doesn’t, I’ll be very, very happy.

Update: This article previously stated the hearing enhancement feature was $149.99 a month, rather than $149.99 as a one-time payment. This has been ammended and the original story continues below.

All eyes were on Meta Connect 2026. The annual hardware showcase is where the company debuts its latest wearables, and this year’s event comes at a time when anti-smart glasses sentiment seems to be at an all-time high — though that didn’t stop Meta showcasing several brand new pairs of specs.

Smart glasses are getting banned from offices, event spaces, pubs, and courtrooms (among other venues), and folks are expressing their uneasiness at being under the gaze of camera-equipped specs — especially given the potential for wearers to film those around them covertly.

Perhaps that’s why Meta has debuted, for the first time, smart glasses that entirely lack cameras, in the shape of the Ray-Ban Meta Audio — though in the pre-Connect briefing I had for the glasses (I’m writing this ahead of the showcase, so can’t speak for what Mark Zuckerberg will say in his version of the keynote) Meta didn’t attempt to link its Audio glasses with the privacy backlash.

Instead, Meta focused on the advantages of these glasses — chiefly their longer 12-hour battery life. We’ll need to see how this figure holds up in our day-to-day testing, though it sounds like these glasses will be able to provide AI assistance and music playback for much longer stretches of your day than previous models.

You’ll be able to enjoy wearing them for longer too. The specs now weigh just 43g (down from 49g for the lightest Gen 2 design), and they also boast some of the Ray-Ban Meta Optics’ (Meta's prescription glasses line) fit adjustments, like ergonomic hinges and adjustable temple tips. Based on my time wearing the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, these features help to make them some of Meta’s comfiest yet — though my demo was only for about 20 minutes or so which isn’t the same as all-day wear.

Audio performance is also getting a boost thanks to Dolby Atmos support. The glasses' microphones are much better at picking up an immersive soundscape, and the speakers are better at playing it back to you.

I heard a few examples in my demo where the video swapped between Atmos and standard Stereo playback, and the difference was night and day. With Atmos I felt so much more immersed.

If you’ve wanted to pick up a pair of smart glasses, but don’t want ones with a camera, these could be the specs for you when they launch on October 13, priced at $349 / £319 / AU$529.

Problem solved?

Of course, Meta hasn’t abandoned its camera glasses — it just announced its Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 model — and in my briefing Meta pushed back on claims its specs can be used covertly.

It described the recording indicator as being “a light you can’t miss,” and noted how it has improved its glasses’ tamper-protection features in recent updates. It didn’t provide details on if or how it will make the indicator more obvious (many I’ve spoken to would disagree with Meta’s “can’t miss” claim), though given the existential threat to its business the ‘perv glasses’ moniker poses, I expect more protections and safeguards are on the horizon (assuming they aren’t announced at Connect).

Audio-only glasses present a partial solution to the issue. They can still capture audio of yourself and those around you, and aren’t as useful as camera-equipped glasses — you can’t provide visual context to the Muse AI, for example — but the lack of snappers also means they’re a lot less invasive.

And despite being more limited, the glasses can still offer some useful support. Meta has announced a new Hearing Enhancement feature for its specs. The feature is designed to help people with mild or moderate hearing loss enhance the audio of the world around them. It's not free, however, as it'll cost $149.99 as a one time purchase (pricing outside the US TBC), or it'll come as part of a Meta One subscription.

Possible added costs aside, this feature is an incredible tool — and a showcase for the good things new tech like smart glasses can provide — and some of the Meta employees at the event told me it's the best thing they've worked on while at the company.

Besides the new Meta VR Glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta Audio are probably the glasses I’m most excited to experience, although camera-less specs aren’t my favorite, as they often lack audio capabilities and use a display — Meta’s specs are the opposite, with no display and Dolby Atmos audio, and that’s much more my style.

I want a casual audio experience with the occasional AI assistance, not a constant HUD that feels mildly useful at best, and annoyingly distracting at worst. I’ll be interested to see what others think, though.

Will this camera-less design face less backlash, will it be widely accepted? Or has the negativity around smart specs gone too far for brands to be able to win people back?

I think there’s still time for smart glasses to be saved, though ignoring the cameras problem is only a half step. Better privacy protections are still needed, but we’ll have to wait and see who acts next — will Meta and others properly regulate themselves, will the court of public opinion continue to rule against 'perv glasses', or will government regulators take the decision out of everyone else’s hands?

Even as public opinion turns against camera-equipped smart glasses, Meta is pushing forward with its generally well-received and quite popular Ray-Ban Meta line. Alongside the much-anticipated Meta Ray-Ban Audio glasses, which skip cameras entirely and come in two styles, Clubmaster and Burbank, there's also the next generation of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

Like the previous generation, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) still features onboard cameras with the all-important glowing LED ring that alerts you when a photo is being taken or a video is being recorded. It's an important safeguard, and Meta has added more protections against folks who try to disable or conceal it, but concerns remain.

Meta's pushing forward with the Gen 3, even if the audio-only models prove more popular. They're launching today in three styles: Ray-Ban Meta Aviator, Ray-Ban Meta Zena, and a new version of the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer. Pricing starts at $449 in the United States; we're working to confirm UK and Australia pricing.

The story across the board is better hardware, all tucked into smart glasses that more closely resemble real glasses, with lighter and thinner builds where possible. The Aviators are particularly exciting to see adopted for the AI and smart era. The frames are thicker than the classic wire ones, but they still frame the face well. Zena is decidedly modern and sleek as a cat's eye, while Wayfarer is still the iconic, cool frame that Ray-Ban introduced years ago.

I'm testing the Ray-Ban Meta Aviator in a brown shade, and you can see my unboxing video embedded below. I like this color, especially compared with my speckled brown Gen 1 Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarers.

There are 27 total combinations when you account for colors and lens types, and if you're willing to pay for it, you can fit these with transition lenses and even prescription lenses.

Regardless of frame style or lens type, you benefit from improved tech onboard. For starters, the cameras — if you choose to use them, and as mentioned, the ring will glow when you do — can take 12-megapixel photos and record 3K Ultra HD video, with Dolby Atmos support for a more cinematic audio experience during playback. There's also a Dynamic Photo mode, similar to Live Photos on iOS, which snaps a few shots so you can pick the best one.

Battery life is also improved. It isn't quite at the 12 hours of the new Meta Ray-Ban Audio models, but the Gen 3s last up to nine hours on a full charge. That's an hour longer than the Gen 2s, and the included charging case lets you recharge on the go.

Finally, just like the Meta Glasses — including the Kylie edition — that launched earlier in 2026, the Gen 3s get more microphones. Six of them improve voice pickup, whether you're drafting a message, asking Meta AI a question, or on a call. Meta promises they cut over 90% of background noise, and we look forward to putting that to the test.

While it's not a night-and-day difference over the second generation, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) shows that Meta has settled on the core feature set it wants for its AI glasses. Now, in a move likely to broaden their appeal, it's focusing on offering more styles, and its partnership with Ray-Ban is clearly still evolving. The Gen 3s continue the quest for smart glasses that feel closer to the regular versions of these frames, while adding the latest tech for a compelling experience.

Just how compelling will be weighed against the added privacy concerns, but let's hope Meta keeps adding more privacy features and keeps cracking down on those who try to block out the LEDs.

We'll be back soon with our full thoughts — and if you ask us, the Aviators look pretty, pretty nice — but if you're already sold, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) are up for order right now, starting at $449 in the US, from Meta, Ray-Ban, and other authorized sellers.

Meta Connect 2026 is busy. Alongside the next-generation Meta Glasses, a camera-free version of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, and a new collaboration with Korean pop star Lisa, Meta is adding a significant new capability to its glasses: hearing enhancement.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the feature, which turns a pair of Meta Glasses into a hearing aid for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. It amplifies sound based on your hearing profile and uses machine learning to boost voices and suppress background noise.

Meta isn't the first here, though. Apple's AirPods Pro 2 are already cleared as over-the-counter hearing aids and Nuance offers a pair of smart shades with a similar function. Meta, though, is betting on its form factor: glasses sit outside the ear, and many people already wear them all day.

It's not free, though. The feature launches with a free 30-day trial, after which it costs a one-time payment of $149.99, or comes as part of a Meta One subscription. In the US, it's also FSA/HSA eligible, with Meta saying it will share more details closer to the launch, which in the US is set for later in 2026. Even including the price of compatible glasses, Meta says it's significantly cheaper than traditional hearing aids.

The feature is launching in the US first, with Meta planning to expand to other countries as it works through each region's medical device regulations.

I spoke with Ravish Mehra, Director of Research Science at Meta, about why Meta thinks glasses are the right home for hearing enhancement. Mehra, who has spent nearly 12 years at the company, says the work started more than five years ago.

"We have a very unique audio platform that has microphone arrays, that has glasses, is socially acceptable in terms of people wearing glasses, and we have onboard compute," he says.

According to Mehra, one in six Americans have mild to moderate hearing loss, yet only around 15% of them do anything about it. He notes that hearing aids are expensive, uncomfortable to wear all day, and signal to others that you have a hearing impairment. So people "put the issue under the rug," Mehra says, telling themselves, "Okay, it's just people are mumbling, and that's why I'm not able to hear."

Glasses sidestep the stigma in his view: "Nobody else can tell just by looking at your glasses that you have hearing impairment.”

A hearing test at home

"Every person's hearing loss is slightly different," Mehra says. Instead of a clinic visit and multiple fittings, Meta's hearing test takes around one to two minutes with your phone, through the Meta AI app, and your glasses. You listen to sounds at different frequencies, indicate when you can barely hear them, and the system builds a hearing profile showing where you need amplification.

"You don't have to go anywhere to get these glasses fit for your hearing profile," Mehra says. "You just do a very simple test at home, and whenever your hearing needs change, you just redo the test."

That test was central to the FDA clearance. Meta tested the feature with a group of people with mild to moderate hearing loss, and its results showed the phone-based test was equivalent in performance to a professional fitting, within an acceptable margin.

"We are actually the first self-fitting hearing aid on glasses in the market," Mehra says.

How it works

The glasses' six microphones capture sound around you — currently being used on Meta Glasses — which is then amplified where your profile shows a deficit. That also amplifies noise, so a machine learning model trained to recognize voices brings the background down. It all runs on-device, and speed is critical. "All of this has to happen in a very short latency, because otherwise you start hearing echoes or start hearing distortions," Mehra says.

There are two modes: 360 mode amplifies sound all around you, while Focus mode suits environments like a restaurant, where you want to hear the person across the table.

"We actually use the microphones to first do beamforming, which is like focusing in the forward direction more," Mehra explains. "And then […] we train the system to enhance the voices while not enhancing or suppressing the noise."

The frame helps, too. "Because the glasses have a much wider baseline, you can put the microphones much farther away," says Mehra. This makes it easier to isolate speech from noise than with microphones placed millimeters apart in the ear.

I got a brief demo: Meta had us put in earplugs to simulate hearing loss, then wear the glasses. They did properly amplify the people directly around me, and even those a bit farther away. Focus mode noticeably singles out the person in front of you, but it wasn't perfect, and of course earplugs are no substitute for real hearing loss.

The feedback problem

Amplifying sound isn't the hardest part, though. "One of the issues that any kind of real-time amplification feature faces is called feedback," Mehra says. "When you amplify something through the speakers, they feed back into the microphones."

On glasses, with their open-ear design, nothing separates the speakers from the microphones. Meta's system has to detect feedback before it builds, suppress it, and still deliver enough amplification. "If you're not able to cancel that feedback, then you hear these very sharp noises," Mehra says.

Then there's processing, which is added on top of a broader feature set the glasses offer, so Meta had to squeeze the feature into what Mehra calls "a very small envelope" of onboard compute power.

Meta hasn't confirmed which glasses will support it, only that they must meet a minimum performance bar, or confirmed a rollout schedule other than late 2026. Given the processing involved, I'd be surprised to see it on older models like the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses; all of the demos at Meta Connect have been on the more recently released Meta Glasses.

Meta isn't just trying to make its glasses hear for you; it's trying to help you hear, too. It's a new category for the company, but Mehra is in no doubt about the bet, telling me: "We strongly feel like glasses is the ideal form factor."

• Meta's glasses can no longer record if the capture LED is covered at any time, says independent test
• But the light is too hard to see if you're not very close, says German data protection agency
• EU bodies recommend actively getting full consent from anyone recorded, not assuming it

Detailed testing confirms that the Meta Glasses firmware update, designed to stop a potential privacy problem with surreptitious recording, does what it's supposed to do — but Germany's privacy enforcement agent says it's not enough, because the light itself is insufficiently visible.

The update was designed to address a simple exploit that bypassed the "no recording when the recording light is covered" feature.

In theory, that feature meant that it was impossible to secretly record someone or something by hiding the camera capture LED. The glasses could detect if the light is covered, and wouldn't record if that was the case.

In reality, it was immediately defeated by the kind of people who've helped earn the 'pervert glasses' label for the smart glasses: they discovered that the glasses only checked the light at the very beginning of recording, so you could simply start capturing, cover up the light and keep recording with the light now hidden.

The new update prevents them from doing that by re-checking the light every few seconds — but privacy watchdogs say it doesn't make much difference: even uncovered, the capture light on current models isn't good enough when it comes to privacy, consent or potential illegality.

Why a little LED isn't enough to protect other people's privacy

In a detailed report by the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, which involved a tear-down of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and a detailed privacy analysis (via Notebookcheck.net), the Commissioner found that the LED light "is not easily visible in many environments, particularly outdoors and in direct sunlight". Meaning that even if you're using them as intended, that doesn't mean people can necessarily see (or recognize) the recording light

It's not just the lack of brightness. The beam angle is very narrow too, the report says, and that means you need to be pretty close and looking almost directly at the wearer to be able to see if the light is on.

The report also notes that the second-gen glasses behave differently to the first generation when the wearer asks about something or someone nearby. With the first generation, the LED "glows, very dimly". But in the second generation it doesn't glow at all.

The report argues that in most cases, if you're not recording friends or family only, then you can't assume informed consent. It recommends additional steps such as text notifications or signage, or actively speaking to the people you intend to film.

That ties in with a recent report by the French e-Enfance association, which reported this month that simply assuming someone saw the capture light does not necessarily mean they've consented to the storage, processing and distribution of their image.

A person needs to not only to have seen the light, but they must also understand what it indicates and be able to withhold their consent. And if minors are being filmed, e-Enfance says parents must provide permission.

It's wise to pay attention if you'll be filming in the country: French privacy laws are notably strict, with prison sentences and five-figure fines for deliberately invading someone's private life.

It's worth noting that these reports are based on European law, whereas US law is much more lenient: the US doesn't have the data protection and privacy protections members (and former members, such as the UK) of the European Union have, and its lawmakers are much more tech-friendly.

But no matter where you live, if you're a smart glasses wearer and could be recording others who aren't part of your close circle, it may be wise to ensure you can demonstrate that the people you're filming knew you were doing it, were able to opt out, and provided their consent.

There's a growing backlash against the use of smart glasses by various bad actors, and simply assuming consent, or even assuming that people are aware of what your glasses are doing just because they have a light, may not be enough to protect wearers from future legal consequences.

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• City of Sydney has joined four other local Australian councils in banning the use of smart glasses in specific areas
• Banned in public pools, gyms, childcare centers, libraries and government buildings
• Separate ban covers public schools in Western Australia

Local government councils and public schools across Australia are continuing moves to rapidly ban the use of smart glasses in public areas, following the federal government’s announcement that use of the devices will be prohibited in government-run workplaces, services centers, laboratories and local council buildings.

The City of Sydney, whose jurisdiction covers a population of approximately 240,000 within Sydney’s central business district and surrounding inner suburbs, is the latest local government council to enforce the ban, following the City of Yarra in Melbourne, City of Brisbane and Canterbury-Bankstown council in suburban Sydney.

The ban covers public pools, gyms, childcare centers, libraries and town halls, and the council will update signage and guidance to enforce it.

“There is a policy in place at our pools that covers the use of recording devices, including smart glasses,” a City of Sydney spokesperson told TechRadar.

“Recording without consent is not permitted and recording devices are prohibited in change rooms and other areas of our aquatic facilities.

“Conditions of Entry, published online and displayed on reception screens, have recently been updated to strengthen protections against non-consensual recording, with specific reference to smart glasses. Reminders have been issued through member communications. Staff respond when they observe behaviour that may be inconsistent with the Conditions of Entry. Matters can be escalated to police if needed.”

In a separate statement, the Western Australian government also announced today that students, teachers, parents and contractors will be banned from wearing or storing smart glasses on school premises from the start of the next school term on October 12.

Western Australia's education minister Sabine Winton said keeping students and staff safe was a priority for the state government.

“This ban is about taking a common sense, preventative approach,” she said. “We know that smart glasses are becoming more accessible and can have a detrimental impact on people’s privacy and wellbeing.”

'We need an import ban'

City of Sydney councilor Matthew Thompson added that there will be exemptions for those who use the glasses as accessibility devices, including individuals with vision and hearing loss.

“Overseas we’re seeing women being targeted and harassed in public and recorded without their consent. We don’t want what’s happening in the US to happen here,” Thompson’s motion read.

“That’s why we’re banning smart glasses and other wearable recording devices from all of our pools, gyms, childcare [centers], libraries and other council spaces.

Thompson has also called for the Australian federal government to impose an import ban on these smart glasses until privacy laws and standards are strengthened.

“Cheap wearable devices like smart glasses are already flooding the market. But instead of stopping this problem, the federal Labor government has dumped it on to councils to sort out.

“We need an import ban on these cheap, intrusive devices until we have stronger privacy protections and clear standards implemented nationally.”

‘Pervert’ glasses and privacy concerns

First widely popularized by Meta, smart glasses have since been replicated by other brands and have recently come under heavy criticism for their potential for harassment and for recording members of the public without their consent — earning the nickname ‘pervert glasses’ in some circles.

A University of Sydney study found that from a sample size of 350 public Instagram videos shot with smart glasses, around 60% could potentially be classified as harassment of a person or people.

Similar bans have also been introduced in the UK and the US, including in courtrooms in England, Wales and New York state, as well as being prohibited from use by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees.

It’s almost time for Meta Connect, with the brand hosting its annual event on September 23 and 24. Here, we’re expecting to see several new devices, with a focus on smart glasses.

Software updates are also likely, including to Meta Muse, but between the RAM crisis and a privacy backlash against the company’s smart specs, this might not be an entirely rosy affair.

So below, we’ve detailed the seven major things to expect at Meta Connect 2026 — covering both the good and the bad.

1. Camera-free Meta smart glasses

While smart glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta can be extremely useful, they’re also facing a major backlash right now, with many people worrying about them being used as spy glasses to photograph and video people without their knowledge or consent. As a result, Meta might respond by launching camera-free smart glasses.

These are rumored to land at Meta Connect, and would likely focus on conversational interactions with Meta’s AI chatbot. It makes sense for Meta to launch these, though how useful or appealing they will be when the AI can’t see what you’re looking at remains to be seen.

2. The Project Phoenix mixed reality headset

We’ve been hearing for a while that Meta is working on a mixed reality headset codenamed Project Phoenix, and while this reportedly won’t launch until 2027, we might get an official look at it during Meta Connect.

From what we’ve seen so far, this might look more like smart glasses than the Meta Quest 3S headset, despite featuring both AR and VR functionality. However, Project Phoenix has been pictured with a cable running down from it, suggesting that perhaps the battery and/or processor are external, thereby allowing for a slim design.

We don’t know much else about this yet, but that might change at Meta Connect.

3. New Oakley and Ray-Ban glasses

We’re probably due a second generation of the Oakley Meta glasses by now, and there’s also a chance we’ll see the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, though it might be too soon for them at this year's Connect.

The Oakley Meta specs are sportier than the Ray-Ban line, with things like wrap-around designs and better water resistance, so expect the second generation to continue with that focus.

As for the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, leaks suggest these could have better battery life, smarter AI, and improved audio.

4. A global launch for the Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses

The Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses are currently only available in the US, but hopefully at Meta Connect we might see these display-packing specs go global.

It’s certainly about time — originally these were planned to get a wider launch in early 2026, but thanks to "unprecedented demand and limited inventory" this was delayed.

But if you’re hoping to get your hands on them you’ll also have to be prepared to pay a lot, as in the US they retail for $800, so you can expect similarly high pricing elsewhere.

5. Price hikes

Alongside new and improved products, we might also see new and not at all improved prices for some things, thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis.

In other words, don’t be surprised if prices for new generation models of the likes of Oakley Meta and Ray-Ban Meta glasses are higher than the current generation.

In the case of Ray-Ban Meta glasses we already saw a price hike for the second generation, so another for the third would be extremely undesirable, but may also be unavoidable.

6. A Meta Muse AI update

Meta Muse — Meta’s AI agent that can send emails, fill out forms, shop, and do other tasks for you — only launched recently, but as a major new service it’s likely to be getting a lot of attention from Meta, so improvements are probably already in the works.

Meta Connect then would be a prime time to find out about any upcoming changes — and perhaps even for Meta to roll out a software update for it or a new model. Or perhaps Meta will announce availability in countries other than the US, so that more of us can try it.

7. Updates addressing the privacy backlash

As well as launching some camera-free smart glasses, Meta may use Connect to announce some software updates aimed at addressing privacy concerns in its existing specs.

Already, the company has rolled out an update that will stop the glasses recording if you cover the LED once a recording has started, but Meta may well be cooking up additional changes to further prevent surreptitious photography and video recording.

Indeed, Meta's VP of Wearables Alex Himel recently said "we’re going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery." So while it’s unclear what exactly those updates will be, we might learn about some of them at Meta Connect.

• The Australian government might ban smart glasses at all of its agencies
• Devices like Meta’s glasses have garnered controversy over user privacy
• The move would follow Australia’s banning of social media for under-16s

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been in hot water ever since they launched amid concerns they could be used to record people without their consent. And the privacy backlash has grown so vocal that the Australian government is now considering a “world-leading” ban on the devices inside any workplace run by the state.

The ban would affect any government-run offices, services centers, laboratories and local councils. It goes a lot further than the state’s current position, which is to allow workplaces to set their own rules on the controversial wearable tech. While the ban would affect most municipal locations, schools and hospitals run by the government would be allowed to decide their own rules on the glasses.

Katy Gallagher, the Australian public service minister, said that the nation’s public has been asked for feedback on the next move, adding that “Smart glasses can raise legitimate privacy and security concerns, particularly because of their ability to record and capture information.”

“We need clear and consistent guidance for public servants,” Gallagher said. So far, no national government has banned smart glasses across its agencies, with the Australian Albanese administration saying it sought to create a “world-leading” standard.

A privacy storm

Meta’s smart glasses have attracted growing criticism for their potential to encourage harassing behavior and to record members of the public without their consent. They’ve been popularly branded “pervert glasses” in light of the controversy, while a University of Sydney study found that of 350 public Instagram videos shot with the glasses, around 60% could be classified as potentially containing harassment of a person or people.

The negative blowback has not been aided by Meta’s abysmal record on user privacy. The company has been accused of harvesting triple the data of its rivals, ignoring users’ desires not to be tracked, feeding untold reams of private data into its artificial intelligence (AI) models, and more. The company’s apps, including Facebook and Instagram, have been labeled among the worst offenders for privacy violations — news that will likely surprise few people.

If the Australian ban goes into place, it would only be the most sweeping of a similar set of moves made around the world. Courts in England, Wales and New York state have banned smart glasses, as has the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Several cities and local councils in Australia have barred the glasses in playgrounds, childcare centers, gyms and public swimming pools.

And Australia also took the lead on restricting social media usage by children when it banned under-16s from using a range of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and more.

Considering the current hostile reaction to smart glasses, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see other governments follow Australia’s cue and outlaw the devices at their state facilities and workplaces. Until Meta can allay public concerns over the privacy-busting potential of its glasses, this storm isn’t likely to pass any time soon.

• Snap’s Specs are its sixth-generation AR glasses
• They may be hefty devices, but they’re surprisingly comfortable to wear and easy to use
• The Specs come packed with engaging features, including a new AI assistant

It’s been almost a decade since Snap Inc. released its first Spectacles smart glasses back in 2016, and the series has grown a lot since then. The original pair was essentially an extension of Snapchat, designed to record short 10-second clips for the social platform.

Since then, Snap’s tech has grown into a robust augmented reality platform, improving both the hardware and software along the way.

For Fall 2026, Snap Inc. will soon launch what is technically its sixth generation of Spectacles. However, it seems that the company is looking for a fresh start, as these smart glasses will simply be known as the Snap Specs.

The Specs were initially unveiled at the Augmented World Expo 2026 in June, and it was revealed then that the company was placing greater emphasis on regular consumers rather than strictly an enterprise audience.

I had the opportunity to try out the Specs myself at Snap Inc.’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California. And it was instantly clear to me that the glasses are meant to be the entry point to a vast AR ecosystem. While I had a lot of fun using them in an early demo, the experience wasn’t without its quirks.

Big frames, vibrant screen

While these 6th-gen Specs are much slimmer than the previous generation, they are still quite chunky, sporting thick black frames made out of a Swiss TR90 polymer.

Snap offers two sizes: a 47mm model weighing 132 grams and a 52mm model weighing 136 grams. For anyone keeping score, that's significantly heavier than a pair of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, which weigh just 50 grams. But Snap did a good job of distributing weight. The 52mm devices felt quite comfortable on my head. The smaller 47mm glasses, on the other hand, pinched my temples.

These glasses project a digital screen with a 51-degree field of view (FoV) in front of your eyes, providing a decent amount of viewing space. Snap equates the floating display to a 24-inch desktop monitor. Combine that with the liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) lenses, and you get high-resolution, vibrant images.

Smart, intuitive software

Most of my hands-on time with the Specs was spent using the consumer-facing software. The UI is clean and easy to understand. Features are split between the Home and My Lenses menus, with the main window remaining visible in your immediate view. Digital objects can be repositioned using a simple pinching gesture.

In my experience, dragging and dropping windows was a little finicky. The process was smooth most of the time, although there were instances when the glasses didn’t register my hand movements, and I had to repeat the gesture several times.

Navigating the interface takes some getting used to, although there is an alternative. Holding your left hand up toward the camera brings up a quick menu that lets you quickly navigate to the Home screen as well as other parts of the system.

A major aspect of the Specs is the new on-board AI assistant, Specs Intelligence. Like other AI assistants, such as Google Gemini, Specs Intelligence can provide contextually relevant information in response to voice commands. It will keep listening until instructed otherwise. Do note that you’ll need to speak up for the microphones to pick up your voice.

It also builds an understanding of your routines so it can surface useful information when you need it. I found Specs Intelligence to be one of the best parts of the glasses. It’s quick to operate, delivering accurate search results and suggestions in almost no time.

Seeing the Apps

I had access to a few third-party apps, namely Spotify and Google Docs. When it comes to audio, the glasses' stems have speakers on either end that point directly toward your ears. Music from Spotify came through crystal clear, with a bit of punchy bass. The best part is how little audio leakage there is. I held the glasses close to my face during the demo, and I could barely hear the music.

With Google Docs, you can connect a wireless keyboard to the Specs glasses via Bluetooth for on-the-go work. It’s a nice utility to have, although there was noticeable latency between the keyboard input and what appeared on the page. I asked if I could connect a mouse to the wearables. I was told that currently, users can't connect computer mice.

Outside the third-party software, there were plenty of first-party apps, including an internet browser, an image gallery, navigation, direct access to Snapchat, and, most notably, a translation tool. What’s cool about the translation tool is that it translates other languages in real time. I had a Snap representative speak to me in Italian, and the translated text appeared on the display a few seconds after they finished speaking.

Admittedly, I don’t know how accurate the translation tool is. I don’t speak Italian, so I can’t verify it myself, but we were able to have a fluid conversation without issue.

The early verdict

Snap’s new Specs were pretty fun to use. They’re comfortable to wear despite their size, and the software felt intuitive. Yes, the gesture controls were a little inconsistent, but there is still time before the official launch to address those quirks.

At the time of this writing, you can pre-order the Snap Specs for an eye-watering $2,195 (around £1,640 / AU$3,090) with a $200 deposit, making them quite the investment.

A release date is set for sometime this Fall (in other words, sometime before the end of November). An exact date has not been given. It is worth pointing out that Snap Inc. will let interested shoppers try the smart glasses at the Specs First Look pop-up in the Westfield Century City shopping mall in Los Angeles, starting October 1. Given that date, an October launch seems likely.

• New camera-free smart glasses from Meta are rumored
• The wearable could be unveiled as early as next week
• A new glasses-detecting app is proving popular with users

It's fair to say that the various iterations of Meta's smart glasses had been quite well received by users — as you'll see from our own reviews — but over time, the general public has become less and less comfortable with the idea of being secretly spied on through the cameras embedded in these wearables.

That might explain Meta's plans to release some spectacles with cameras on board, as reported by The Information. According to the outlet's sources, the glasses have the codename Luna, and will be available in two styles called Clubmaster and Burbank.

With no camera, the focus will be on the audio capabilities of the glasses, which will let you have conversations with Meta's own AI chatbot. The report says we could get a grand unveiling at the Meta Connect event next week, on September 23 and 24.

While Meta's smart specs have always been fitted with LED lights that show when they're recording, modders were finding ways around this, enabling more covert video and photo capture. While those mods have since been disabled and prevented by software updates, it's still left people with a general sense of unease.

The backlash continues

As Meta apparently preps its next pair of smart glasses, Wired reports on the ZuckOff app that takes a swing at the Meta CEO in its name, and alerts users when they might be in the presence of someone wearing Meta glasses. The app uses Bluetooth to scan the surrounding area for these wearables.

With several thousand downloads on both Android and iOS, the app is clearly proving popular. It's free to download and use in its basic form, with a pro version available for $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$14.99 a year that scans continuously and gives you scan histories.

It's not your only option either: if you're on Android, Nearby Glasses is open source and free to use, and does a similar sort of job as ZuckOff without the provocative name. That app has now racked up more than 100,000 downloads.

There's definitely been a shift in perception when it comes to glasses that can record, warning light or no warning light — even though these specs have been around for years. There's even talk of bans and government regulation coming in at some point, which Meta might be trying to get ahead of with its next pair of glasses.

Meta Connect 2026 is fast approaching, and it seems a big surprise hardware announcement has just been leaked — by none other than Meta itself. It’s not much but our first official look at the so-called Project Phoenix has me very excited that we might finally get the Meta Quest Pro successor I’ve been begging for.

The leak was spotted by prolific Meta leaker Luna, who found a never-before-seen headset in the latest Horizon OS prescription lens firmware. Because it only shows how lenses are inserted into the new design, we don’t get a full look at the whole thing, but it seems XR glasses might be a better description than XR headset.

That’s because the front of the headset looks incredibly slim. Not quite Meta Ray-Ban levels, but a fraction of what the Meta Quest 3 and 3S were thickness wise. There also appears to be no head strap. Instead, we see the display unit supported by glasses' stems sitting behind the ears of the wearer.

What this leak seemingly confirms is the rumors that Meta has been working on an ultra-lightweight headset design. One where the battery and a chunk of the processing power are all moved to an external puck — something also teased by a cable we see extending from one of the Meta device’s stems.

Of course we should take all leaks and speculation with a pinch of salt, however considering some details are now coming directly from Meta itself, I suspect this may be a case of where if there’s smoke there’s fire.

If so, I couldn’t be more excited. Following the disappointing start to VR in 2026, this launch might turns things around (at least somewhat).

What I've been waiting for

XR hardware housing its battery in an external puck is nothing new; however, moving processing power in there too is far less common — the only one I’ve experienced is Xreal’s Aura glasses, though it works incredibly well.

By taking as much as possible out of the headset, you can significantly drop the weight of the machine, and, because you’re tethered to something in your pocket, your movement won’t be restricted as it can be when you’re connected to a PC or console.

This makes something capable, comfortable, and somewhat mobile. That said, it seems Phoenix will still be more headset-like than glasses-like, so I’m not sure I see myself exploring the outside world while wearing it.

For gaming and entertainment, there are other specs to consider (such as processing power, display quality, and content support), but where this design wins out is for productivity.

I’ve tried spending entire working weeks immersed in XR and my tests have proven it’s incredibly uncomfortable. It’s fine for a few hours at a time, maybe for the one-off day, but not for eight hours a day five days straight. That’s nightmarish.

But the lightest model I’ve tried is the 545g Samsung Galaxy XR. If Meta’s headset can drop to 200g or less, then it could easily be something I wear for a whole day. Plus it would be super easy to slip into my rucksack to be productive in XR on the go — or kick back with a big-screen movie.

This is precisely why I’ve been wanting an ultra-lightweight XR headset to enter the scene, but so far I’ve been let down. Xreal Aura gets close, but as glasses, it doesn’t boast the same field of view as a headset — with a headset offering more virtual real estate for app windows.

All I need is for Meta’s headset to copy the Xreal Aura's ability to show what’s on my phone screen via a USB-C cable and it could be the perfect XR headset (provided the price isn’t too high).

We’ll have to wait and see what Meta unveils at Connect, but September 23, 2026, can’t come soon enough.

At IFA 2026 I got to experience several pairs of smart specs including two from RayNeo: the impressive GT Max glasses which could be my new favorites, and the RayNeo iO.

I’ve tried specs like iO before. They’re smart like Meta Ray-Bans — meaning they can link up with apps and offer AI assistance on the go — but hide clear displays for HUD elements in their lenses, and — crucially, given the current backlash against so-called "pervert glasses" — lack a camera. And so far I’ve been unimpressed by the models like this that I've tested.

While not having a camera is a big privacy boost, it also strips out an incredibly useful tool that can be used for capturing first-person memories or giving the AI the context of what you can see. What’s more, the app used to control the specs and on-device controls can be pretty terrible. I haven't felt convinced that the features left behind once you remove the camera are really for me.

Out of the gate, the app and controls have been solved in the RayNeo iO. My experience with the app is that it’s incredibly smooth, with features loading up quickly.

Meanwhile moving between apps on the glasses is a breeze with the Digital Crown, a physical dial and button (yes, just like the Apple Watch and AirPods Max control of the same name) that's perfect for cycling between options. It's less temperamental than swiping on the frame, and more convenient than always needing your phone in your hand.

As for the features themselves, I’m still not convinced they’re for me, but they do have their uses. You can see notification popups, create memos for yourself, there’s real-time translation and captions, you can call on AI assistance, have easy access to information such as stock prices, or use them as a teleprompter.

The captions actually seem like an awesome accessibility tool for anyone hard of hearing, and RayNeo showed me how a deaf person can see the text of someone talking to them without needing to be able to see them and watch them sign — the glasses can effectively tell someone hard of hearing if someone behind them is trying to get their attention.

The standout tool of iO is Life Log, though. The glasses may lack a camera, but they can record every detail of your day through microphones, which pick up the sounds of your conversations, meetings, and musings to create detailed diary notes of what you’ve experienced.

This includes summaries of activities, suggestions for to-do list items you should remember to complete, and it can be used to inform third party AI services about your life if you choose to share it.

If you've been following the announcement of Apple's Audio Intelligence tools on Apple Watch, it's very much like that.

Features vs privacy

On this, RayNeo made clear to me in an interview that these specs are privacy-first. No recordings are ever stored, instead the AI transcribes and summarizes in real-time. Plus, the whole process is handled on device — across your glasses and phone — so nothing is shared with a server unless you choose to share it. Additionally, you won’t need to enable data sharing to access the tool.

Of course, there are still privacy considerations. A lack of cameras will cut out some of people’s smart glasses uneasiness, but audio recording can still be invasive (and illegal without consent in some parts of the world, such as two-party consent states in the US). The specs do let others know when you’re recording with a light, though it’s not the most obvious indicator.

But I like that you have good control over your data and how it’s shared with RayNeo and other services without locking yourself out of AI functions entirely.

My only other concern with the specs based on my quick demo of them is the Conversation Assistance feature, mostly because it feels a tad icky to me.

You can have the specs listen in on a conversation you're having — with demo reels showcasing it being used on a date or at a job interview — and the AI will display prompts for what you should say next in response to someone. I could perhaps understand this for a job interview if you’re super nervous, but I just kind of hate it overall.

Social interactions, be they dating or talking in a meeting, are a human aspect we shouldn’t be offloading. We should be engaging actively with each other, participating in life, not sitting back mindlessly and letting an AI respond for us.

Of course I’ll need to review RayNeo iO properly to judge it fully, but my initial takeaway is they’re the best cameraless smart specs I’ve seen so far. And tools like live captioning could be an amazing accessibility tool for folks who are hard of hearing.

I’m still not convinced this design is my cup of tea, but that’s perfectly okay. Speaking to smart glasses wearers at IFA, there’s a growing love for these cameraless designs as the Meta Ray-Ban backlash grows, and perhaps RayNeo’s design and stable software will prove to me why if I spend more time with them.

• We may have our first proper look at Meta's Project Phoenix
• The glimpse comes from inside the Horizon OS software
• An official launch is expected to happen sometime in 2027

We've known for a while now that Meta is working on a new mixed reality (MR) headset, able to blend the real world and digital landscapes together, under the codename Project Phoenix — and the first images of the device just leaked out.

The leak comes courtesy of UploadVR (via Engadget), and the pictures were apparently hidden away in the latest version of the Horizon OS software for the Meta Quest devices. They're part of the support section of the software, showing how prescription lenses can be fitted inside the Project Phoenix headset.

You can see from the image (embedded below) that the line between headsets and smart glasses is blurring here. In terms of size and shape these look more like specs than something along the lines of the Meta Quest 3S.

Nevertheless, the device has cameras on the front for 'seeing' rather than transparent lenses, so it's technically very much a 'headset'. Perhaps we'll need to come up with another word for this product category, or maybe Meta will do it for us.

Coming soon

Besides the design, the images don't reveal a whole lot about Project Phoenix, except how you put prescription lenses in and scan a QR code — presumably to get them configured properly so you're able to see the outside world properly.

However, we do see a cable running down from the device, backing up previous rumors that there will be a connected component somewhere else, holding the battery and possibly some of the processing power.

That's what makes the Project Phoenix headset so thin and light, and it's something we've seen on other hardware like this, including the Apple Vision Pro. A battery especially takes up a lot of space and adds a lot of weight, so it makes sense to have it somewhere else (though it's not clear exactly how you'll keep it attached to your person).

With a 2027 launch date previously predicted by those in the know, all eyes will now be on the Meta Connect event that gets underway on Wednesday, September 23. Meta is going to be announcing updates on a lot of its products, and maybe on this MR headset too.

• RayNeo launched the GT Max glasses at IFA 2026
• They cost $429 / £399
• They boast Dolby Vision, and new optic engine prisms

Since publishing my review of them, I’ve had one pair of XR glasses at the top of my list: the Xreal One Pro. RayNeo has always been a close second, but here at IFA 2026 they may have just snatched the crown.

That’s thanks to the newly unveiled RayNeo GT Max specs, which boast improved audio and visual performance compared to anything RayNeo has made before. Best of all, the upgrades won’t break the bank at just $429 / £399 (not sold directly in Australia) — notably cheaper than the $599 / £579 Xreals.

Let’s start with audio. The big change is the GT Max houses larger drivers than ever before. This leads to richer and more impactful bass and midtones than I’ve ever seen from previous display glasses, and the audio was already solid on RayNeo’s specs.

The hardware has been tuned by Bang and Olufsen, whose expertise has optimized the EQ with the promise that we’ll get the best performance possible out of RayNeo’s tech.

This can be enhanced further by sound tubes, which direct the sound more directly into your ear, though they’re a paid add-on.

The biggest changes come to visuals, however.

The most obvious is the new optic engine prism, which reflects the microOLED screens into your eyes. They’re now the flatter shape debuted by Xreal in its One Pros, which has two advantages.

First, the design plus anti-reflective coating has greatly reduced the impact of reflections disrupting your vision as you watch your show, film, game, or whatever you’re viewing. Secondly, it allows for a larger 57-degree field of view, meaning the virtual image can be much larger and more immersive.

This upgrade was easily the best the Xreal One Pro has boasted, and the main reason it topped my list for so long. This prism’s arrival on rayNeo specs is greatly appreciated.

The other visual enhancement of the GT Max glasses is that they’re the first XR glasses to support Dolby Vision — a codec that enables great color clarity and contrast. You’ll need to view Dolby Vision content to take advantage of it, but when you do, it’ll make the content look better than it has before.

Better, but not bank breaking

Normally, major upgrades like this would lead to a serious price hike. Sure, they’re pricier than RayNeo’s more budget-friendly specs, but at $429 / £399, the GT Max is decidedly mid-range.

In contrast, the Xreal One Pros will set you back $599 / £579. There are still some reasons to opt for the specs, most notably Xreal’s 3Difying tech, which makes any flat images stereoscopic — including games and movies — but this RayNeo launch makes the full-price One Pros look less appealing.

Of course, my full thoughts will have to wait until I can review the RayNeo specs properly, but the GT Max are ones to watch if you want excellence at a more affordable price, and they’re at the top of my list for specs to check back in on during Black Friday (where sales, even on newer RayNeo tech, are sure to land).

Here at IFA 2026 I finally got to try the Xreal Aura glasses. They’re the tech you’d get if my Xreal One Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR had a baby, and their Fall 2026 release date can’t come soon enough.

While they can basically do everything an Android XR headset can do (more on that in a moment) the Xreal Aura is importantly a pair of smart glasses, with the lightness and comfort advantages you’d expect of that compared to a bulkier VR wearable.

They do boast some serious tech, despite the light weight. Including see-through 2K displays boasting a 70-degree field-of-view — up from the the 1,080p screens you’ll find from similar smart specs to come before — plus speakers tuned by Bose, a microphone for capturing what you say, and cameras that facilitate hand-tracking and tools like Circle to Search (which lets you Google search things you can see, by drawing a circle around it with your hand).

However the specs don’t include a battery or any processing power. This is instead housed in an external compute puck that also doubles as a track pad — scroll your finger across the surface and you’ll move a digital cursor you can use to interact with apps alongside hand-tracking controls.

This is how the glasses are able to be so comfortable, while still being incredibly capable.

One the Android XR side of things, these specs can — just like the Galaxy XR — access the Google Play Store to download dedicated XR and flat apps, let you enjoy content from your favorite streaming service on a giant virtual screen, engage with Gemini across your apps for assistance with a variety of tasks, and boot up Google Docs if you’re looking to be productive.

You can do these tasks all at the same time too, arranging virtual windows in the space in front of you.

With a USB-C Cable and compatible device — which includes most phones, laptops, tablets, and several consoles and handhelds — you can connect it to the glasses (via the puck) to have its screen appear as a window in front of you too.

In my demo I was watching the latest GTA 6 trailer while playing Hades on a Steam Deck. The windows appeared side-by-side in front of me, and I had Gemini watching me game so it could offer coaching (I’ve played plenty of Hades before so didn’t need the help, though the advice I was offered did seem decent).

When will it land?

It’s all very impressive and I cannot wait for these specs to be in my hand for a full-on review.

Speaking of, unfortunately Xreal hasn’t confirmed a release date or price for Aura. However its official website says it’ll be landing sometime this fall (Northern Hemisphere, so that’s September, October or November) and will cost no more than $1,500.

I hope the price will be as low as possible (even sub $1,000), though Xreal’s promise would still make it cheaper than a Galaxy XR headset, and there’s only so cheap we can expect XR tech to get — especially with the ongoing RAM crisis.

IFA, Berlin's huge annual tech expo, is where some of the biggest tech firms unveil their latest innovations — and this year is one of the strongest we've seen in a long time for interesting new releases.

IFA is a great place to find fascinating new gadgets and devices, ranging from next-gen AR glasses to self-driving personal mobility vehicles, and from weird new kitchen appliances to armies of humanoid robots.

We've chosen the top products from those that were nominated for our IFA 2026 'Best in Show' awards to produce this list of our 25 winners, based on how innovative they are, how well they serve their intended use, and the degree to which we think they'll influence their area of the tech market.

There were many more products that we really liked, of course, but we had to be ruthless — here are our top picks from IFA 2026.

Anker Soundcore Sleep Earbuds 4 Pro

The best technology delivers real-world benefits, and what could be more beneficial than a good night's sleep? The Soundcore Sleep Earbuds 4 Pro use in-ear PPG optical sensors to monitor your heartrate, which is more accurate than other optical tracking methods thanks to the rich capillaries and stable position of your ear canal. That monitoring delivers data to the smart-screen, phone-free SleepHub charging case.

The Sleep Earbuds Pro feature passive isolation as well as 30dB active noise cancelling, and the case-based snore monitoring system detects and masks the sound of your partner snoring using its built-in sounds. Despite the addition of multiple new components the housing is thinner than previous generations, and even more comfortable for side sleepers.

Anker's BioSync dynamic audio system monitors relaxation in real time, dynamically adjusting the audio content and structure to help you find the most effective sleep sounds. Sleep earbuds are something that can truly improve your health and happiness by improving your sleep, and these look like a really smart upgrade.

Agibot A3

Agibot is doing some amazing things with humanoid robots, and the full-sized Agibot A3 combines multiple capabilities in a lightweight, extremely dynamic model: if you're assembling a robot dance troupe or planning a big exhibition, the A3's the bot to buy.

The A3 weighs just 55kg, has a power-to-weight ratio of 0.218kW/kg, and delivers up to 12kW of instant peak power, enabling it to somersault. Its battery runs for up to 10 hours and is hot-swappable in seconds, so it's great for applications where it needs to last all day. It'll happily fit in an SUV for travel, too.

In addition to voice and app control, the A3 delivers industry-first touch sensing that adds physical interaction to its controls. It also has a 360-degree multi-array mic system for accurate voice recognition, even in noisy environments.

One of the most exciting features of the A3 is its large-scale swarm co-ordination, which uses precise UWB positioning to enable performances by up to 100 individual robots. That makes it possible to create very complex, high-impact performances for big events, as well as enabling multiple units to work smartly in environments such as factories or warehouses. The awareness and the uptime make this a great new approach to robotics.

Hypershell X Ultra S

The Hypershell X Ultra S exoskeleton helped mountaineer Adriana Brownlee in -30C temperatures on Mount Everest, supported athlete Aurélien Fontenoy's 4,037km Route 66 journey while recovering from injury, and is currently being trialed by search and rescue organizations worldwide.

Before Hypershell, exoskeletons cost $100,000 and above; the same capabilities are now available to consumers for less than $2,000, in a device weighing under 2kg.

The X Ultra S is an end-to-end AI motion-control system that uses an AI model to transform raw sensor data directly into motor torque, enabling faster response, smoother adaptation, and more natural human-machine synchronization.

There are 12 active modes, including walking, cycling and running, and a new Gentle Assist mode for older adults and users with short or shuffling strides. Fitness Mode adds resistance, turning a walk into a workout.

But it's the price that won us over here — this could be a game changer for getting people with limited mobility out and doing more things that they love, from hiking to just visiting the local stores.

JMGO IRIS Ultra Max

The IRIS Ultra Max is one of the world’s first true 4K 120Hz flagship smart projectors, delivering native 4K (rather than pixel-shifted) at 120Hz from input to output, all from its very compact case.

The Ultra Max's dual iris system has 6+9 blades, the highest count in its class, which promises to improve stray light suppression by 11.34% for a more accurate picture, while delivering class-leading contrast, with a quoted ration of 10,000:1. The MALC 6.0 Triple-Laser Engine delivers an impressive 6,500 ISO lumens of brightness, making it more visible in more lighting conditions, and with a promised ability to recreate 110% of the BT.2020 color space, with an astounding color accuracy of delta-E of 0.7, meaning it's truly capable of pro-level color range and accuracy.

The IRIS Ultra Max also introduces an industry-first 3-in-1 Optical System that integrates 0.88–1.7:1 Optical Zoom, Four-Way Lens Shift (V ±130%, H ±53%), and an AI-Powered Gimbal (360° H, 150° V) into a unified projection architecture. This makes it more more flexible than traditional projectors to positioning, because it has so many different options for correcting its picture. It gives small home theater setups top-tier performance without compromise.

DJI Osmo Pocket 4P

Designed for vloggers and movie-makers alike, the Osmo Pocket 4P is the world’s first dual-lens pocket gimbal camera. It delivers cinema-grade imaging in a pocket-friendly form, and features DJI's Academy Award-winning Ronin stabilization.

The main lens is a wide-angle 20mm equivalent with an f/2.0 aperture, and a new 1-inch CMOS sensor that offers 17 stops of dynamic range and over one billion colors via DJI's new 10-bit D-Log 2 color profile.

That's supplemented with a 60mm medium-tele portrait lens, which gives you 3x optical zoom and up to 12x digital zoom. Its f/1.8 aperture is particularly good for creating bokeh effects by compressing the background and pulling it closer to the subject.

The Osmo Pocket 4P also features the latest version of DJI's ActiveTrack, which uses AI algorithms to maintain tracking lock at up to 12x zoom. It can actively track up to eight people, framing groups and centering anyone new who steps into the field of view.

RayNeo GT Max AR Glasses

The RayNeo GT Max AR Glasses are the world's first AR glasses to support Dolby Vision playback as part of creating a virtual cinema experience. They deliver up to 1,200 nits of perceived brightness, a 120Hz refresh rate, and real-time SDR to HDR conversion for super-clear images, too. Their optical system is 29% thinner and lighter than traditional designs, and delivers an industry-leading 59-degree field of view.

One of our favorite features is the adjustable virtual screen sizes, with a choice of 227 inches, 267 inches or 307 inches. That's clever: the tighter size is ideal for spreadsheets and productivity apps if you're using them as a display for a phone or laptop, while the larger sizes deliver immersive gaming and video.

Steady, Pinned and Follow modes enable you to anchor the screen or have it move with you, and 3DoF spatial tracking maintains the screen position without straining your eyes, and keeps subtitles, taskbars and image edges within the viewing area as you move. These look like the most advanced way to take a screen with you everywhere, and they could be indispensable for long flights.

TCL P80 Ultra

If you spend as much time on your phone as we do, you'll be blown away by the screen of the TCL P80 Ultra. It's the first phone to integrate NXTPAPER eye-comfort technology, with a 1.5K sharp AMOLED display for reflection-free reading even in bright sunlight, and a button that instantly turns your P80 Ultra into an e-reader with paper-like viewing.

The P80 Ultra has nano-etched anti-glare glass, eliminating surface reflections without reducing brightness. It also features circular polarized light technology, which changes the light output to more closely replicate the characteristics of natural light, and flicker-free dimming.

The camera's pretty special too. It's a 50MP 3x periscope telephoto lens with a 50MP 1/1.56-inch large-format sensor, capturing more light per pixel than smaller sensors and enabling 6x lossless zoom. Image stabilization eliminates motion blur in photos and video, and TCL's MuseFilm filters promise cinematic-quality images. But it's the groundbreaking display that really won us over — a lot of people will find it much kinder on the eyes.

Lenovo ThinkBook 14x Gen 2

Lenovo's ultra-light laptop makes even ultraportables look positively porky: at just 2.18lbs / 990g and just 12.9mm thick it's one of the lightest and thinnest laptops around, making it ideal for business travelers and students alike — especially if you opt for the backlit keyboard, which is really helpful in dimly lit rooms and airplanes.

Lenovo has somehow managed to give the ThinkBook 14x the super-thin treatment without sacrificing connectivity, so in addition to its Wi-Fi 7 it features two 10Gbps USB-C ports, two 5Gbps USB-A ports and an HDMI 2.1 port, so there's no need to haul a hub around with you. It also has a spare M.2 slot that enables you to expand its storage, which makes this a solid long-term investment.

The ThinkBook 14x Gen 2 is also one of the most customizable ultraportables, powered by Intel Core 7 (Series 3) processors and with display options including vivid OLED and touchscreen LCD. It's good-looking too, with a choice of metallic finishes including Luna Gray, Celestial White, Mystic Violet and Veil Blue.

EarFun Wave Pro X

EarFun's headphones consistently deliver premium performance without the premium price tag, and the Wave Pro X are the brand's best yet. They feature a patented dual-driver system that places a 40mm diamond-like carbon driver and a 10mm liquid crystal polymer driver on a precisely aligned axis, creating a more natural and detailed sound than you typically get from multi-driver designs.

The Wave Pro X feature an 8-mic AI system that continuously optimizes the hybrid ANC system, even in wired AUX mode, and the Qualcomm QCC3095 chipset delivers Bluetooth 6.0, aptX Lossless, LDAC, USB Audio and Auracast. Add AI translation and up to 90 hours of battery life to the mix and you've got a truly excellent pair of headphones — EarFun has been working on these for a long time, and even delayed them in order to get the tuning just right.

Urevo CyberPad 3

The CyberPad 3 is a home/office treadmill that's designed differently to traditional models. Its WalkFree Adaptive Speed Control uses pressure sensors built into the running board, which detect your stepping motion to automatically start and stop operation; when you're walking or running it takes data from the motor to calculate speed adjustments in real time.

Its multi-user support is smart too, capturing raw weight and stride-rate data to generate a structured user profile that's directly linked to the speed-control algorithm.

The support structure is made from Q235 steel with a side frame of die-cast aluminum, and it utilizes a redesigned transmission path to deliver an exceptionally compact construction: the ultra-slim body is under 11cm thick. Despite its small size it features a 15% incline-lift mechanism and a 42cm running belt, with its size based on analysis of human shoulder widths.

Plaud One

Plaud One is a wearable AI companion that combines three key features that are usually separate: wearable conversation capture, context that builds across day-to-day conversations, and AI that can analyze data and take appropriate action. It can capture online meetings, and face-to-face discussions and phone calls, and it has built-in eSIM and 4G LTE for phone-free operation.

What makes Plaud One different is that it understands context. Instead of treating each recording as a standalone transcript, it can retain context across multiple discussions — so a conversation from one meeting can be connected to a later conversation or call.

That understanding enables the Plaud Agent to help you take action, identifying next steps and completing tasks across tools such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion, and Slack.

Minisforum MS-S1 Max-P495

The MS-S1 Max-P495 delivers large-model AI computing from an exceptionally small footprint with a very high specification. It combines AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 with up to 192GB of unified memory to run 128B+ LLMs locally, delivering up to 126 TOPS, and its unified memory architecture eliminates VRAM bottlenecks while also reducing latency.

That power is cooled by a high-performance thermal solution featuring a copper base, six heat pipes, dual fans and phase-change cooling, and it's encased in a fully scalable design, with a slide-out chassis for easy upgrading and a rack-ready form factor.

With 4x PCIe expansion, dual 10Gb Ethernet, dual 40Gbps USB4 v2, Wi-Fi 7, and a built-in 320W PSU, the MS-S1 Max-P495 delivers future-proof power for desktop systems and scalable AI clusters alike — it's a mind-blowing beast made to meet a new kind of research and development need.

XPPen Magic Pro 13

XPPen's Magic Pro 13 is a mobile drawing pad designed for creative pros, featuring an industry-first hardware-level drawing display mode that delivers low latency, native color output and higher bandwidth video transmission over a simple one-cable connection, giving you a paper-like experience with 16K pressure sensitivity and cursor hover support.

It's the first drawing pad in its category to come with dual-USB support, enabling you to benefit from a high-speed data connection while charging your Magic Pro 13.

The Magic Pro 13 features the new Shelf digital asset management system and XPPen's Canvas software, designed to deliver a simple and intuitive sketching experience for capturing ideas when inspiration strikes. And for creatives on the move it offers two thermal management modes, balancing performance and energy efficiency based on different creative scenarios.

Strutt ev1c

Strutt's ev1c reimagines the power chair with three major advancements: Strutt's evSense sensing array, a quad-drive drivetrain, and a modular, connected design.

eVSense uses two LiDARs, 10 time-of-flight sensors, six ultrasonics and two cameras to create 3D maps in real time, powering the Co-Pilot collision avoidance for people, pets, and edges, and the Auto-Pilot, which enables you to select on-screen destinations, or use LLM-powered voice commands such as "Take me to the kitchen" — basically it's a self-driving personal mobility vehicle.

The drivetrain features four-wheel independent suspension, ABS, active steering, and an integrated electronic stability program (ESP), safely managing 13-degree slopes, cobblestones and rough terrain without slippage or tipping. And when it's time to travel, it breaks down into five modules for easy trunk storage. It looks like a genuine move forward for this kind of mobility device.

xTool M2 Color Craft Laser

The xTool M2 is the first desktop machine to combine full-color CMYK printing, laser engraving and laser cutting into one enclosed Class 1 system, delivering a full print-then-cut workflow. Simply print your full-color design onto a piece of wood, leather or acrylic, and the xTool M2 Color Craft Laser cuts or engraves the exact contour with camera-guided precision. And there's a built-in air-assist pump, an industry first for a semiconductor laser, that keeps cut edges clean by reducing carbonization and yellowing.

Having these three capabilities in a single device is a huge power-up: instead of having to print on one machine and engrave or cut on another, you can turn your raw idea into a finished, professional-looking product in a single operation. It's ideal for stickers, labels, signage, personalized gifts, and small-batch products — you could start a whole business with this one device. And because it's an enclosed system, it's also very safe.

Perlegear AX1 Smart Adaptive Mount

The Perlegear AX1 Smart Adaptive Mount answers an interesting question: what if your TV mount was as smart as your TV? The AX1 is an AI-powered, motorized TV mount that can automatically adjust the height of your TV to different viewing positions, so for example you might have it low for solo TV watching, but raised for watching sports with friends, or for following an on-screen fitness app or motion-based game.

The AX1 is controllable via gesture commands, its mobile app, via remote control, or via Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri. It can distinguish between single- and multi-person viewing, with the latter calculating the best screen height for the group, and it's capable of moving a 200-pound / 90kg TV up to 15.7 inches / 400mm vertically, with real-time obstacle detection that stops and reverses the move if the path is blocked.

Speediance Gym Monster 3

The brilliantly named Gym Monster 3 delivers serious strength training for home workouts, combining the experience of a Smith machine, barbell, dumbbells, cable machine, rowing machine, pulley system, and squat rack into one streamlined setup with up to 200lbs / 90kg of intelligent digital resistance.

Twin 800W direct-drive motors deliver smooth, consistent resistance through every rep, and it's adjustable in one-pound / 0.45kg increments, so you can progress at your own pace, rather than make big jumps you might not be ready for.

The Gym Monster 3 is controlled via a clever Bluetooth Ring Control that enables you to make adjustments without stepping away or breaking your flow, and it features four dedicated training modes: Standard, Chain, Eccentric, and Fixed Speed. It also features a built-in AI coach that can guide you from your first session onwards.

Midea GreenApex Dishwasher

The humble dishwasher hasn't changed much since Josephine Cochrane's 1886 invention went electric in the late 1920s and gained spray arms in the 1950s. But the Midea GreenApex is very different from traditional grease-busters. It's a dual heat-pump system that uses a single coordinated heat pump platform to deliver washing, rapid drying, and dry storage in a single appliance.

The GreenApex is 50% more energy efficient than conventional dishwashers, delivers 30-minute rapid drying and 168 hours of dry storage without continued system operation, and offers gentle heat-pump drying at around 45°C, so you don't need to worry about high temperatures damaging more delicate items. It feels like a major leap forward for an appliance type that doesn't often have the phrase 'cutting-edge' associated with it.

Reolink OMVI 2i Ultra

The Reolink OMVI 2i Ultra Security Camera features an innovative, decoupled dual-lens tracking system in which the individual lenses operate fully independently of one another. Unlike in other dual-lens or hybrid zoom security cameras, the two lenses here are not mechanically linked, so the fixed 130-degree 4K wide-angle lens never moves, while the telephoto camera is free to rotate anywhere, including to cover areas outside the field of view of the main lens.

This means that when the 4K camera's on-device AI spots a person, vehicle or animal, it triggers the pan-tilt camera to lock onto and follow that subject even after they exit the wide camera's field of view — but you don't lose any recording from the wide camera's view during that time.

You can also use the wide-angle view to redirect the pan-tilt camera to a particular location by simply tapping that point in the live camera view, or have the wide camera and the pan-tilt camera monitoring two distinct locations, such as your driveway and a side gate.

Navimow H510 Pro

The Navimow H510 Pro features four key innovations: precise edge finishing, zero-turn steering, adaptive mowing intelligence, and 3D modelling.

Rather than edging with a trimmer line, which can be noisy and cause minor damage, the H510 Pro has an extendable robot arm that performs zero-gap edging quietly and safely — it's the most interesting and smart version of this technology that we've seen.

The all-wheel-drive system protects your turf too, with a zero-steering system that avoids dragging the wheels across the grass during lateral turns. And the Adaptive Mowing Intelligence feature analyzes grass growth patterns to determine the optimal mowing frequency, using the 1/3 cutting rule to preserve lawn health.

With 3D terrain modeling rather than the industry-standard 2D, and a sensor array including infrared as well as LiDAR and vision for low-light reliability, and triple-sensor avoidance to protect wildlife, the H510 is a smart solution for even the most challenging lawns.

DJI Romo 2 Series

The Romo 2 Series is a robot vacuum that won't be defeated by obstacles such as deep rugs, sliding door tracks and other barriers. That's because it has robotic legs that can step over obstacles as high as 4cm, and double-step thresholds up to an impressive 8.5cm.

It also features a built-in LiDAR-guided ultra-wide-swing robotic arm to extend the mop's reach, and its powerful suction system features an automatically lowering plate that forms a semi-seal on carpet for better extraction of dust and allergens.

The Romo 2 Series also benefits from the tech of DJI's flagship drones, with a Structured Light-Speckle projector and dual fish-eye vision sensors for full 3D depth perception. It can detect items such as cables and training pads as thin as 2mm, and its AI can distinguish between debris and liquid, as well as deal with transparent obstacles such as glass doors and mirrors.

Acer Vero 16

With so many laptops sacrificing easy maintenance and repairability for super-skinny styling, the Acer Vero 16 is a breath of fresh air. While it doesn't skimp on style or power — it's highly portable, delivers up to 180 platform TOPS with an Intel Core Ultra X9 processor 388H, and can be configured with a stunning 16-inch 3K OLED display — it's made with longevity in mind.

A tool-free latch provides easy access to the Vero's innards, and the battery and SSD are replaceable, while the system is designed to support the next two generations of processors if you want to upgrade. Fully 70% of the chassis consists of a blend of PCR (post-consumer recycled) and bio-based oyster shell material, and it meets US military standards for toughness. This is a laptop that's built to last, in a way that's rare to see — and very welcome.

Asus ProArt GR1X

The Asus ProArt GR1X is tiny, measuring just 150 x 150 x 51mm. But there's nothing small about its specification. Designed for advanced content creation and local AI workflows, it delivers data center-class compute inside a mini PC, removing the need to run LLMs remotely while eliminating cloud latency, cost, and IP protection concerns for pro creators.

The ProArt GR1X features the groundbreaking Nvidia RTX Spark 'superchip', which means you get a 20-core Grace CPU and a 6,144-core Blackwell GPU, delivering up to one petaflop of FP4 AI inference performance. With up to 128GB of LPDDR5X unified memory at 9,400MHz, it enables you to run up to 120B-parameter LLMs locally, and render entire 3D scenes on-device in Windows 11.

That kind of power demands highly efficient cooling, and Asus has developed an advanced precision-cooling system that delivers 1.6x more efficient thermal coverage than standard compact systems. Asus also solved the challenge of metal-enclosure signal attenuation by embedding the Wi-Fi 7 antennas behind a glass-like signal-transparent material. It's quite the design coup, and an impressive showcase for Nvidia's new elite chip.

EcoFlow STREAM 5000 / STREAM AC 5000

The EcoFlow Stream series is a plug-and-play modular system for residential solar energy generation and storage that's designed to be renter- and apartment-friendly. It can add battery storage and smart power-management to existing solar PV installations, as well as being employed to create a new home system from scratch.

The Stream Series features EcoFlow's Oasis 3.0 home energy management system, which understands dynamic energy tariffs, keeps an eye on the weather forecast, and continuously analyzes your home energy needs to optimize generation, storage and consumption.

That means you can give the EcoBot AI agent instructions such as "I need my car charged by 7am tomorrow at the lowest possible cost" and it will implement the necessary steps, or have your energy schedules reconfigured automatically when you have visitors or other instances of increased demand.

From October the EcoFlow Stream series will also get a new feature: Local Mode, which gives you uninterrupted operation and local app control even if there are cloud or connectivity outages. It's a very powerful (no pun intended) system that's been designed with the real world in mind.

Tapo D260

The Tapo D260 wired/wireless security camera is a video doorbell that delivers all the benefits of high-spec security without the potential downsides: it stores facial recognition data locally to protect privacy, and no features are locked behind a subscription. It's advanced, yet totally cost-free once you buy it.

It has 4K resolution, a wide 180-degree field of view to cover the entire doorway, and delivers sharp detail in subjects up to 30 feet away.

The D260 features multiple intelligent detection and recognition features, including radar as well as the obligatory infrared motion sensor. These enable it to discount false alerts from things such as moving branches or passing headlights, while on-device AI can recognize people, packages, vehicles, and animals.

If you wish, you can opt in to build a library of family and friends using facial recognition, and there's even a voice changer to disguise your voice when speaking to unfamiliar callers. In a world where people are sick of subscriptions, this offers a great security upgrade without the monthly fee.

• Meta is again updating its smart glasses software to stop people from circumventing the privacy controls
• The camera won't film if you start filming and then block the LED
• There's also a marketing campaign designed to educate consumers

Sentiment around smart glasses that can capture photos and video is quickly turning, and not in the direction chief smart glasses purveyor Meta would prefer. Now, to stop the — admittedly small — percentage of users who are trying to circumvent the glasses' built-in protections for nefarious filming, Meta is introducing a new slipstream technology update. And it's coming to Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses as we speak.

In a post on Threads, Meta's VP of Wearables Alex Himel announced a software update that will make it impossible for wearers to film or capture pictures if the glasses detect that you're covering the LED.

That LED is designed to signal to others that you were filming them, but hackers soon figured out how to disable it. Meta quickly made it so the system could detect that. Now, it seems they've noticed another workaround, which this update will quickly squelch. If you, say, start filming and then somehow cover the LED to hide the signal that you're doing so, the system will stop recording.

Here's how Himel explained it in his post:

"The camera won’t start recording if the LED is blocked, but some people try to bypass this by starting a recording and then covering it up. A fix for this is starting to roll out — the camera will now stop working if the light is covered during a recording."

Perhaps more importantly, Himel is aware that hackers probably won't give up trying to jailbreak the wearable cameras and promises. "We’re going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery."

The second update is perhaps less impactful in that it's mostly a marketing campaign designed to "educate' or convince people that these glasses have a place in our world.

Meta is already putting up billboards claiming the glasses are "Designed for everyone, not just the people wearing them". Smaller text below that announces: "The camera lets you capture the moment. The light lets everyone around you know when you do."

There's also some social media reminding folks that "The glasses announce themselves," which is another reference to the integrated LED light.

It's an admirable effort, though it seems that people are not just concerned with creepers who are surreptitiously recording: they are growing increasingly uncomfortable with people potentially walking into any space and filming. The glasses are being outright banned in all sorts of venues and face potential bans in theaters and even countries.

Of course, people filming everything everywhere has long been the case with smartphones, and we have countless hand-held, on-the-scene videos and social media to prove it. It seems to be the unexpected nature of these smartglasses. Even with the light, people don't realize at first that they are being filmed, which can lead to some uncomfortable conversations.

For Meta, convincing consumers that they have this situation under control — even if it is relatively few bad actors — is critical. The company is deeply committed to the wearable intelligence space. They have been rolling out new smart glasses models, including the recent Essilor Luxottica models that feature a frame designed by Kylie Jenner, and the company is a month away from its big Connect conference, where it's expected to announce more updates across all its smart eyewear, including the Ray-Ban Displays, which include cameras and an in-lens display.

Is this update enough to make you comfortable around Meta Ray-Ban smart glass wearers? Let us know in the comments below.

• Meta's official GTA San Andreas VT port never launched
• So a modder has vibe-coded a port for the Meta Quest 3
• You can play it yourself, but it's not easy

The Resident Evil 4 VR remaster on the Oculus Quest 2 was the best the platform had to offer, so a Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas VR port was easily the most exciting news to come out of Meta’s 2021 Connect event. But it never arrived. So now modders are making up for Meta’s biggest letdown by finally bringing San Andreas to Quest systems.

In fact, there’s a whole VR porting community that connects via the Flat2VR Discord. One such member, called GeT_RiCh, has made it his mission to bring the long-promised GTA title to Quest headsets, though you will need a Meta Quest 3.

It’s still a work in progress — you can follow updates on Discord — and installing this game isn’t as easy as pressing a button. As the mod’s GitHub explains you’ll need not only this mod but an original copy of GTA San Andreas from the Google Play Store (specifically version 2.11.311 exported as an APK), a PS2 sound pack for the game, a PC, a Quest 3 headset in Developer Mode (to authorize USB debugging), and around 15GB of space on your PC and 6GB on your headset.

Plus, you’ll need plenty of time and confidence that you can accurately go through the technical steps. I was considering trying to jump into the game before writing this piece up, but quickly realized that might be a challenge.

Despite the shortcomings, the effort is pretty incredible. It’s also, interestingly, being aided by Claude, which the modder is using to help him vibe-code aspects of the software.

Say what you will about vibe coding in the wider coding world, but the tool’s apparent effectiveness at helping someone complete a long-term passion project like this is pretty incredible.

Better late than never

It’s never been officially confirmed what went wrong withMeta’s version of the GTA VR remaster but general development issues of converting all the flat games’ elements into first-person VR, problems with the Quest 2’s low processing power being able to handle the game world, profitability concerns (especially when faced with the massive profits GTA Online expansions or GTA 6 promise), or one of a dozen other possibilities have been floated.

Regardless, all we know is that after that tease, GTA San Andreas VR never managed to get out of the starting gates.

Many have questioned this decision over the years — GTA in VR would be a slam-dunk for plenty of gamers — and others have been perpetually frustrated at Meta for hyping them up into buying a Quest headset, then killing the project.

Thankfully there is now a way to sort of play San Andreas in VR on Quest. Yes, it’s a Quest 3, and yes, it’s not the simplest port to set up, but it’s better than nothing — which is what Meta and Rockstar gave us.

As public perception continues to sour, and private businesses ban smart glasses from their events and premises, it feels like the writing might be on the wall for Meta’s Ray-Bans. At least as we know them.

Even without many laws changing, camera-equipped specs are becoming increasingly difficult to wear, especially if you don’t want to be branded a perv or a creep.

Because of this changing tide against Meta Ray-Bans and others, the most recent episode of the TechRadar podcast is a smart glasses special. Podcast regulars Josie, Axel and myself brought Tom’s Guide’s Jason England on board to discuss the issues facing smart specs and the risks they pose — while also acknowledging how useful the tech can be when used appropriately.

We rounded things up with a quick discussion on what smart glasses could do to solve their privacy problems and clean up their public perception. I want to continue that chat here with you, our readers and viewers.

Below I’ll outline four possible paths forward, followed by a quick poll asking you which path you believe we should take.

1. Keep cameras in glasses

If you are a smart glasses maker like Samsung, Meta or one of the many others, this would likely be your preferred approach: keep calm, and carry on churning out glasses with cameras (or AirPods if a recent Apple leak is to be believed).

The backlash against surveillance tech is at a fever pitch right now, but public outrage has a way of waxing and waning. Smart specs have been wildly popular before, who says they won’t go back to being mega popular in a few months?

This process could also be sped along by rolling out new privacy policies, or software which aims to mitigate the way smart specs with cameras are misused. If new useful features are released, marketing could also help to make smart glasses look more essential, and get their detractors to overlook the glaring privacy issues they’re so bothered about right now.

For current smart specs users it means their Meta Ray-Bans would still be completely usable, and fully functioning — allowing them to rely on the first-person content capture capabilities for recording memories, informing their AI, or for accessible needs that the glasses are offering the visually impaired.

It’s also unclear how effective a ban could be if it wasn’t universal.

Countries like China already feature major public surveillance and tight regulation of what people can share online, so the downsides of camera glasses aren’t as strongly felt there. As such they’re less likely to see a ban. Bad actors could import glasses from countries where they are sold and attempt to dodge restrictions from brands who might not be as willing to address concerns as Meta has been with its various safety updates.

On the flip side, not banning features in some way means that the privacy issues persist — plenty of folks could still be being recorded without their knowledge or consent. This could lead to serious public consequences if people take action into their own hands, or heavy-handed legal consequences if governments decide to ban smart glasses in all their forms to avoid any possible workarounds — depriving us of the useful features XR specs could offer in all aspects of our life (if the technology was allowed to develop).

2. Ban smart glasses outright

Rather than waiting and letting things continue before taking action, we could ban smart specs right now.

Of course this would limit access to the useful features they provide, and would see people’s purchases become paperweights, though it would tackle the privacy problems head on.

I’ll address banning simply camera glasses below, but the one advantage of this approach is it also hits glasses with microphones that could be used as a form of covert surveillance technology. While audio is often less invasive than video or images, privacy advocates would argue any kind of surveillance is a terrible thing.

As I touched on above, removing smart specs entirely would deprive us of some potentially exceptionally useful and awesome tech that could provide benefits to our work, our ability to travel and communicate, and our play.

However, smart specs are also causing plenty of headaches. This approach would make them all go away if it proves effective.

3. Ban cameras in glasses

A less heavy handed approach would be to merely ban cameras, but allow glasses with displays, speakers and/or microphones only to continue.

This would allow smart specs to offer audio or screen-based AI assistance, to play music, let you watch a TV or film, or perform a host of tasks that don’t depend on computer vision.

Though a lack of cameras would limit the tech’s immediate usefulness quite considerably. I’ve touched on this already, but the snapper can provide context to the AI when you ask it questions about a landmark or sign you can see, it can offer hands-free recording capabilities many like to use while on vacation or while doing an action sport, and it has been used as an accessibility tool by the visually impaired to allow their smart specs to describe the world around them.

The advantage to smart spec makers is this approach could see them dodge an outright ban on glasses wearables — cameras or not. It may also keep a door open for a safer camera-equipped version of smart glasses to materialize; a model that addresses the privacy concerns of the original.

Of course, this wouldn’t remove the risks of covert audio recording posed by smart specs, though you could argue that the dangers posed by such recordings is less severe, especially since plenty of other accessible covert tools (even a smartphone) could be used to privately record sound.

4. Keep the cameras, ban video recording

The issue with camera glasses isn’t necessarily that they can record, it’s that they can record relatively discreetly. While Meta’s glasses do have a recording light it’s easy to miss if you don’t know to look for it.

For photos, an obvious solution would be to require the specs to play an audible camera snapping effect whenever a shot is captured. Meta’s specs can already do this, and it's a requirement of smartphone cameras already in countries like Japan.

Because Meta glasses don’t have zoom capabilities you can’t take useful photos from very far away, meaning an audible effect like this would be heard by anyone you attempt to photograph covertly. They could then confront you about being a creep in much the same way someone obviously taking photos with a phone or camera could be addressed in the moment.

Video is a little tougher to make obvious and still usable in the end result. An audible effect would need to play throughout the recording which could spoil the clip’s audio. An alternative could be to make the recording light brighter and have it pulse to make it a little more obvious, but it still may not be completely noticeable. So you could simply ban video recording with smart glasses.

This halfway house would allow the specs to sense the world around them — facilitating AI and accessibility tools — but could greatly restrict the harm they could cause.

The downside is hackers could modify the cameras to facilitate video recording as all the hardware would still be there. That said, tamper-proof measures could mitigate this risk.

Now it’s time to have your say. These four possibilities are somewhat simplistic, but I think they capture four general strategies we could deploy to ‘solve’ our smart glasses problem. Let me know which you like best, or feel free to comment below with your thoughts!

• UK movie theatres considering smart glasses ban
• The ban would be over privacy and piracy concerns
• It's yet another instance of private bans restricting the tech

Privacy concerns have rocked Meta’s smart glasses business. They’re being ridiculed online as ‘perv glasses,’ and their use is banned in a growing number of spaces. In the UK, this could also soon include cinemas, though it’s for a very different p-word: piracy.

The main concern with camera glasses, like the ones Meta produces with its partners Ray-Ban and Oakley, is that people can record in a fairly secretive way. This is an issue for the general public as they don’t know when or if they’re being recorded, and for venues like cinemas and theatres as it allows movies and live shows to be subtly recorded by the audience.

With a stable enough internet connection, the viewing could even be live-streamed.

The ban hasn’t taken effect yet, but its consideration is another blow for smart glasses makers and users, who are finding it increasingly difficult to wear their specs because of their spy-camera capabilities.

Meta would argue that recording isn’t covert. There is a light that comes on and stays on while you record. Plus, Meta has taken numerous steps to disable recording capabilities if this light is tampered with — either via a simple cover or by fiddling with the hardware.

However, critics have argued the light is easy to miss if you don’t know to look for it, especially if you're outdoors during the day or in a bright place.

In a dark theatre or cinema, the recording light would arguably be a lot more noticeable, though the proposed ban would reduce the risk that bad actors sneak through — while also addressing privacy concerns the glasses raise for other patrons, and banning glasses that allow more covert filming.

Because while Meta is the most well-known smart glasses maker, and so is taking the heaviest share of the backlash, it isn’t the only player in town. Some glasses manufacturers aren't as strict about tackling modders who disable their recording indicator, while others make the indicator even less noticeable or don’t ship with one installed.

Going, going, gone?

Governments have also been considering action against smart glasses; however, we have yet to see much in the way of widespread bans. At this rate, we might not need to.

The court of public opinion has issued an overwhelmingly negative verdict on smart glasses. The privacy concerns for people wearing the glasses, and for passersby caught in their gaze who never consented to having their life captured by smart specs,

Even previous champions of the technology I’ve spoken with — journalists like myself who have used and tested, and loved these glasses — have stopped wearing them outside of our reviews. I’ve written before how I’m genuinely fearful I’ll get accosted in the street if I’m caught wearing these glasses.

Besides the threat of retaliation, the steady banning of these glasses across various venues makes them increasingly useless. That’s doubly true for folks who need prescription glasses — smart glasses bans often say that the glasses having prescription lenses is no excuse, meaning you could spend $500 / £500 / AU$750 plus on a pair of glasses you can’t wear anywhere.

Is this the end of smart glasses then? A serious perception overhaul could help, though it’s unclear how that would be achieved without such major software changes or hardware alterations, such as removing the camera altogether — though, from experience, cameraless smart specs don’t impress me. It’s too useful a feature to lose out on.

To that end, it’s a lose-lose, and that’s a shame for a category I think is quite fun and cool when people aren’t being creeps with them. They’re also proving a handy tool for people with visual impairments as the glasses can see and describe the world for them.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but I expect it’ll continue to be a rocky road ahead for smart glasses.

• Smart glasses bans are being introduced and considered
• There are growing concerns over smart glasses privacy
• Could hardware changes solve people's concerns?

I’ve written a lot about the high likelihood of major smart glasses regulation being introduced in various regions as the technology garners more and more bad press, and as expected, we’re starting to see bans and other restrictions take shape.

No nation has yet to all-out ban smart glasses, but a few have outlawed their use in certain scenarios while others are investigating harsher measures. Some private companies, such as event organizers, have also banned smart glasses on their premises and at their conferences.

Of course, this is bad news for smart specs owners who now could be facing restrictions on where they can/can’t wear their intelligent eyewear. For anyone considering adding smart glasses to their technology arsenal, these possible restrictions should be taken into account when making your final purchase decision.

So where are we starting to see smart glasses bans? Here’s a selection of the countries investigating and introducing anti-intelligent eyewear rules.

United States

Generally, smart glasses can be worn freely in the US; however, New York State has banned them from being used in any of its courts. Smart glasses with recording capabilities could be seen as an attempt to intimidate those involved in the case, and some cases contain sensitive private information where unauthorized recordings could impose serious risks.

Other states have introduced less widespread bans in courts — including Philadelphia, Hawaii, and North Carolina.

Meanwhile, the US Air Force includes in its rules for service members that they are “Unauthorized to wear mirrored lenses or smart glasses with photo, video or artificial intelligence capabilities while in uniform.” This seems like more of a presentation thing than an anti-smart specs rule (especially given the inclusion of mirrored specs), but it does mean you can’t wear intelligent eyewear in uniform regardless.

Further, attendees of conventions such as major hacker conference DEF CON 34 have been barred from wearing Meta glasses or similar. These bans focus on the possibility of glasses recording folks without their knowledge — with organizers arguing the recording light some glasses offer isn’t the most obvious.

UK

In the UK, things are much the same. Courts don’t ban their use, though after one person was being coached by their glasses’ AI mid-trial, their usage is generally advised against. There are also recording restrictions in UK courts, so while glasses aren’t explicitly banned, using them to snap photos or videos would be against the rules — the same as it would be for using your phone or a regular camera.

We have seen companies like Monopoly Events ban camera glasses from its Comic-Cons after secret filming complaints, and there’s a petition to the Government to ban the sale and promotion of smart specs in the country. These petitions don’t always go anywhere, but it shows there’s at least some public unrest over smart specs, and that could lead to rule changes.

EU

The European Data Protection Board is currently drafting a report on smart glasses, with it expected to land sometime in the next few months. However, while more general EU rules are being discussed, some individual members are making their own individual decisions on the tech.

Germany’s data protection authority commissioner has warned camera glasses could be banned under existing laws prohibiting recording devices hidden in everyday objects.

Netherlands digital rights activists have expressed frustration at smart glasses' ability to record people without their knowledge, while France’s privacy regulator, the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty, has highlighted the privacy risks camera glasses pose.

South Korea

Rounding things off, we have a different kind of ban in South Korea, with the country specifically restricting smart glasses access in exam halls after cases of students being caught trying to cheat using intelligent eyewear.

Smart devices are generally banned from exam rooms in most schools across the globe to prevent cheating, though given the importance of South Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test, their very explicit ban makes sense so as to remove any possible confusion over whether students can even bring smart specs into the room with them.

Could things change?

Of course, very few bans have been brought in yet, but they could be unless things change on the hardware side.

A big concern is over privacy for non-glasses wearers caught in the gaze of someone's camera — especially if they don't know they’re being recorded. An obvious fix here would be to make smart glasses much more obvious when they're recording — perhaps brighter camera lights, a loud audible camera sound when snapping a photo, some kind of audio indicator when video is being recorded.

For users, they’ll want better control over what is and isn’t accessed by smart glasses makers when using their tech, and more certainty about which images are and aren’t shared, or which videos can or can’t be seen by contractors.

We’ll have to wait and see how the situation develops, though I’m not sure how much longer smart specs can go before we see serious regulations.

• Cheap smart glasses are selling out as people look for Meta Ray-Ban alternatives
• More camera glasses are leading to more privacy concerns for many
• I wouldn't buy them for plenty of other reasons

If you want a pair of smart glasses, you’re spoiled for choice in terms of what they can do technologically, and over time we’ve seen more and more budget options appear. These cheaper models are the first step in making emerging gadgets more accessible, but for smart specs there’s a fear they might simply exacerbate the growing concerns over the tech.

Australian discount store Kmart recently went viral after the AU$89 Anko glasses it was selling sold out entirely (via The Guardian). In the US and UK, you don’t have to look far to find equally affordable camera glasses available through reputable digital marketplaces such as Amazon.

Given the proven popularity of Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley specs, it’s no surprise the market would see an influx of smart glasses, especially cheap pairs that aim to mimic much more expensive rivals while keeping costs low — typically by downgrading their technological capabilities and not partnering with premium design brands.

However, cheap smart glasses aren’t as universally celebrated as cheap TVs or affordable smartphones — scrolling through online forums discussing this news, the replies aren’t kind about smart glasses, discussing the pitfalls of smart glasses in general and more affordable options specifically.

The most prominent concern is that cheap camera glasses expand the range of people with the technology. More people with these glasses means more people possibly recording people in public without their knowledge.

There are also fears that cheap camera glasses might not come with the same sophisticated tamper protection glasses from more recognizable brands boast. Either through tape coverings or minor electrical modifications, folks could disable the camera light and use the specs even more covertly than they otherwise would — they’ve tried the same with Meta specs, but Meta has patched out these workarounds so far.

Privacy and other problems

Beyond the impact on the general public, cheap smart glasses users might want to consider the privacy implications of wearing cameras from unknown brands.

We’ve seen that even super well-known brands like Meta aren’t perfect — for example, there are reports that contractors could see videos (including intimate or otherwise private content) taken using the glasses if it involved the AI in some way — so why should we expect completely unknown brands with nothing to lose to be any better with privacy?

In fact, considering their lack of notoriety makes them less likely to get investigated in the way Meta was by journalists who uncovered the sharing of videos with contractors. The ease with which tiny brands can dissolve and pop back up under different names, I for one would be a lot less trusting of what they do with my data and of their phone apps.

Of course, many lesser-known brands behave responsibly, but when there’s so much room for things to go wrong, for private information or video to get leaked, I just have this extra layer of paranoia I can’t shake.

Even ignoring my personal privacy concerns, as someone who has tested countless smart glasses at this point, I’ve found that better-known brands are simply better at making hardware and software.

I’ve worn so many uncomfortable specs with tinny audio, awful camera quality, terrible AI, and apps that are worse than useless. They’re sluggish. They’re ugly. They’re not worth even a budget price.

Just don’t buy them.

If you do want smart specs, save up for something proper — it doesn’t have to be from Meta, but I’d recommend choosing a brand with plenty of solid independent reviews. While I’m using them less for reasons better explained by other writing, I have gone weeks on end wearing a good pair of smart glasses thanks to comfy yet fashionable design and solid tech. Whereas the cheap (and terrible) glasses I’ve tried I’ve wanted to rip off my face within hours.

You get what you pay for.

Meta may dominate the smart glasses zeitgeist, but it's far from the only player — my favorite brand in the space is actually Xreal, with its range of impressive but pricey wearable-display specs. And with the launch of its new xbx brand, Xreal's lineup now includes more budget-friendly options too.

If money were no object, Xreal’s One Pro glasses are easily the crème de la crème of smart specs. Their Bose-tuned audio is impressive for such a small package, their electrochromic dimming tech is perfect for swapping between clear vision and shaded for optimal viewing conditions, and their unique optic engine displays their image more vividly than the competition, with fewer visible distortions.

The only issue is their price — $649 / £579 (they aren't available directly in Australia), absent any discounts, although they can be found on sale occasionally.

If you’re on a budget, my preferred pick has instead been RayNeo. Its Air 4 Pro specs debuted earlier this year, and not only are they affordable at just $299 / £289, they still come with solid specs, including HDR10 support.

With its new xbx a01+, however, Xreal might have just claimed the budget crown for itself.

Budget brilliance

Now the elephant in the room is that Xreal's specs cost a bit more. At their current $299 / £269 discounted price at Xreal.com they're on par with or cheaper than RayNeo's glasses; however their official price is $359 / £349, and while they aren’t discounted at the moment, we’ve regularly seen the RayNeo Air 4 Pros selling for $249 / £249 (RayNeo also doesn't seem to sell directly to Australia) or cheaper.

At the same time, the Xreal xbx a01+ glasses boast a handful of improvements which warrant a slightly higher price.

For a start, their brightness tops out at 1,600 nits, while the RayNeo Air 4 Pro can only hit 1,200 nits. This extra brightness should allow you to get more out of the HDR10 support, offering more room for the light vs dark contrast and vivid colors to breathe across the video format’s visual range. Highs can look more high, helping lows look lower by comparison.

Aiding the image quality are the swappable lens covers.

While advertised as giving you the ability to choose which color of sunglasses cover you most want to complement your style, the xbx's box also includes a completely opaque black cover you can use with your specs. Because the specs are essentially virtual projectors, a darker environment ensures the highest-quality viewing conditions, though I found the regular sunglasses were fine even in bright sunlight.

The xbx glasses are lighter too, weighing just 62g compared to the RayNeo Air 4 Pro's 76g. Admittedly I haven't found them majorly more comfortable, but as I kicked back with them in a sun lounger while on vacation for hours on end I was relaxed enough to doze off on several occasions.

The only tradeoff is, I'd say, the audio, which doesn't seem to involve Bose tuning this time, and isn't quite as impactful as the Air 4 Pro's. That said, I'll almost always use earbuds or headphones with my display glasses, because they’re better in terms of quality and minimize sound leakage, so this downgrade didn't bother me.

Who wins? You decide

You'll also have to contend with Xreal's standard optic engine too. This is the prism that reflects the micro-OLED display into your eyes, and the standard design is susceptible to external reflections — most commonly light bouncing off the top of the specs and into your view. Pictures will also be a little smaller thanks to a reduced field of view, and can be a little blurrier at the frame edges.

Only Xreal's One Pros boast the improved design, but having experienced it, it's tough to go back to the standard optic engine.

To be fair, though, that’s mostly a me problem, and if you’re new to the display glasses world the Xreal xbx a01+ and RayNeo Air 4 Pros should be perfectly adequate performance-wise.

As for which of the budget specs you should go for — whichever is cheaper would be my suggestion.

The technical improvements of the xbx specs are solid, but if you can save $40/£40 or more on the RayNeos, their few deficiencies can be overlooked.

That said, if stylish, colorful designs are a must, alongside a marginally better image quality, then you'll be very pleased with the new Xreal xbx a01+ glasses.

I’ve tested dozens of smart glasses for TechRadar, but every time I get a new pair of Meta Ray-Bans to try, I’m reminded why they’re so popular — because yet again my past three weeks with the Ray-Ban Meta Optics have been a joy.

Mostly.

Much like Meta’s previous smart specs, you’ll find a host of technological features crammed into the eyewear.

There are speakers for open-ear audio, which is perfect for listening to casual tunes, taking a call, or hearing the AI’s responses to your queries — with the glasses’ microphones also doing a great job at picking up what you’re saying with minimal noise disruption.

Dedicated earbuds will sound better for sure — the bass isn’t as emphatic as I like with Meta’s Optics glasses (or its other models) — though I did enjoy listening to music through my glasses for hours on end with no major complaints.

As mentioned, there’s also Meta’s AI, which is accessed through the connected phone app and voice commands on your specs. It can answer questions you ask it and, with your permission, see what you see by accessing the Meta Optics’ camera to provide additional context to your questions, and interact with connected apps to play music requests or tell your health and fitness stats.

I’m not a big AI user except when I’m on holiday or just generally acting like a tourist. On our honeymoon, my wife used Look and Ask to check the ingredients on hair care products to make sure she wasn’t allergic, and I got the AI to supply me with phrases to use when I realized my limited Spanish wasn’t going to cut it.

The AI’s also perfect for identifying landmarks and telling you more about historic sites. I relied on it so much on a trip I took to Italy with my other Meta glasses a while ago — it helped me understand the ruins of Pompeii and better learn the history of the Colosseum.

Beyond identifying foreign signs and buildings, the cameras are ideal for first-person video. I used them to snap photos and videos of my wife and me, and they came out really well — they're the ideal way to record memories digitally, as you can still live in the moment rather than being cut off behind a phone screen.

I’ll talk more about cameras in a moment, but before that I want to focus on the key way the Optics is different to Meta’s other Ray-Ban smart specs: it's comfort and fit.

Built to last all-day

Meta’s smart glasses are chunkier than non-intelligent eyewear, which can make them feel more rigid and less comfortable than regular specs. To make the Optics better suited to all-day wear (something I can confirm they handle effectively after wearing these glasses for hours on end over the past few weeks), you’ll find interchangeable nose pads and adjustable temple tips to help you sculpt them to your face shape.

The correct nose pads have helped the specs sit better on my head without slipping down, while the temple tips can be carefully manipulated (either at home or at an optician) to help the Optics grip your face without applying too much pressure to the sides of your head.

If you’re considering getting some yourself, my final design note is this: pay extra for transition lenses.

The Ray-Bans I’ve been testing are outfitted with the Transitions XTRActive option, meaning they change between clear and shaded when exposed to sunlight — even when I’m in the car — and the lenses changed so quickly as I moved between different environments (something I noticed a lot when going between indoor and outdoor spaces on my honeymoon to Tenerife).

My non-smart eyeglasses boast Transitions Gen S lenses, and I’m also happy with them, or you can opt for polarized Transitions if you want even more light protection, if you’re also willing to pay a bit extra.

Regardless of which type you opt for, Transitions lenses are essential because they maximize the usefulness of your smart specs. Without them, you’re limited to either clear glasses you can only use indoors or on darker days, or shaded glasses that can only be worn outdoors when the sun is brightly shining.

Why did there have to be a but?

Now, the elephant in the room is that Meta’s smart specs are facing increasing amounts of scrutiny from the public because of their cameras.

News stories showcasing bad actors harassing women, recording secretly by modding their specs, or revealing that Meta contractors might be able to see more of your recorded content than you realize have been populating our timelines throughout 2026.

The upshot seems to be a wave of negativity: I conducted a poll through one of my recent stories, and over half of all respondents said they think smart glasses should be banned.

For its part, Meta is doing plenty to combat these issues: it cracked down on Facebook Marketplace listings for glasses modding services and issued an update to prevent the camera from working if the recording light on your smart eyewear is disabled, and it’s also tackling Instagram profiles belonging to creeps like pickup artists who promote using the glasses to harass people.

I still think more needs to be done on the privacy side of things — at the very least being much more explicit about what features share captured content with Meta, though ideally all of your content would remain private through an Apple-like Private Cloud Compute server setup.

As of now, I’m admittedly very nervous to wear my Meta Optics. I haven’t been worried about going around wearing my Meta Ray-Ban and Oakley specs in the past, but with growing public anger over the way smart specs are being misused, I have a genuine concern someone will see me wearing them and act violently towards me.

Or I could simply be banned from entering a space while wearing them. Some Comic-Cons, offices, and courts don’t let you in wearing Meta-style smart glasses. Especially for something as essential as prescription glasses, and pricey ones at that, being constantly nervous while wearing them or barred from entering certain spaces isn’t ideal.

There is genuinely so much to love about the smart glasses, and if you haven’t yet got a pair and wear prescription eyeglasses, the Meta Ray-Ban Scriber Optics styles are the ones I’d most highly recommend.

• SyLC 3D Player supports everything from 3D Blu-ray to Apple spatial videos, and it can convert 3D video to display it on Apple Vision Pro headsets
• It's backwards and forwards compatible — and the creator says it can get dual-HDMI output for dual projection, for future-proofing
• The app runs on Windows, and is free via Github 'because this format deserves better than a slow death'

One of the great tech disappointments of the last few decades was 3D TV. Like many movie fans I was excited by the possibilities, invested in a 3D TV, and watched the entertainment industry ensure that yet again, 3D movies were a short-lived trend. By 2013, it was already generally agreed that 3D TV was dead and that smart TVs and 4K were the way ahead.

Not everyone got the memo [I had mine until 2020… -Ed]. Over on the r/audiovisual subreddit, Jarod-The_Centre is determined to ensure 3D never dies — so they have been making a free player that now "plays EVERYTHING in 3D" from Blu-ray to Apple spatial videos.

And that's just the beginning of its talents. If you're a fan of things pointing out of the screen for no good reason, Jarod's player is fascinating.

What does the 3D player do?

What doesn't it do? The player, called SyLC 3D Player, is a Windows app that's now in its fifth release. It's designed to play three different generations of 3D content: Blu-ray 3D/ISO/MVC MKV; HEVC/H.265 3D up to 4K 10-bit HDR; and Apple's MV-HEVC spatial videos. "The MVC of the 2020s, playing on your 2010s 3D TV," Jarod writes. "There's something poetic about that."

The app outputs in frame-packed 3D for compatible 3D TVs and projectors, and it can do something else that's really impressive: it can export 3D content as MV-HEVC, so you can take a 3D Blu-ray and turn it into a spatial video for Vision Pro.

I love Jarod's explanation for making the app. "It exists because this format deserves better than a slow death, and because apparently I don't know when to stop."

Jarod's in good company. Reddit's response to the latest announcement has been really positive and packed with good ideas, so for example Acceptable-Rise8783 suggests that for future-proofing, the app should be able to "send the two fields separately but in sync through two HDMI outputs."

With 3D TVs and projectors becoming increasingly hard to find — as they point out, "projectors are dropping support left and right because the chips that do 3D are becoming hard to come by" — the choice of viewing platforms will be reduced to dual-projector 3D or VR headsets.

The creator says this is something likely to appear in the player in a future version as the player already drives two windows simultaneously — and it means that dual projectors is the most 'future-proof' option for 3D, and the app supports it as best it can.

The whole discussion is fascinating, and I think Jarod sums it up beautifully. "Keep the faith. The format's not dead while we're still building for it 🔥".

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It’s probably fair to say Meta is facing serious public backlash to its AI glasses.

Musician Lorde took time at a recent concert to tell her audience, “Don’t get the glasses,” many online are branding them “pervert glasses,” and activist group Everyone Hates Elon has put up spoof adverts for the glasses featuring Jeffrey Epstein wearing a pair (note: the story behind a paywall).

I myself have been unsure if I’ll keep using my Meta glasses, despite their utility making them one of my favorite gadgets I’ve tested while working at TechRadar.

Meta has rebutted with new measures to combat misuse of its glasses. It recently patched its specs to prevent modders from using the camera despite disabling the recording light, and Instagram head Adam Mosseri recently announced harassment videos shot using Meta glasses will be banned from the platform — with some high-profile accounts already getting the boot.

Among the folks still in love with the Meta glasses, however, is my wife Izzy.

When I suggested taking a pair each with us on our recent honeymoon to Tenerife, she wasn’t convinced — despite them being our only sunglasses without my prescription lenses in them — but she wore the white-and-gold Oakley HSTN specs nearly all the time we were abroad.

I was also testing out a pair of the Ray-Ban Meta Optics styles for an upcoming review, and time and again the glasses proved themselves useful. Our trip confirmed how awesome these glasses can be when used right, and why a middle ground needs to be found to maximize privacy and utility before things get out of hand.

An all-in-one AI supertool

Of course, the primary reason to rely on Meta glasses is their built-in tech.

Whether we were lounging on a sunbed, strolling through the streets and past the beaches of Los Cristianos, or kicking back with a drink in the evening, we both loved the open-ear speakers that let us enjoy our podcast or playlist of choice without tuning out the world.

For hours on end, I enjoyed Radio 1 through BBC Sounds, while Izzy drifted between Spotify hits, and both pairs lasted a good length of time battery-wise — with touch controls making it super simple to control the tunes when needed.

The AI translations came in clutch several times as well. It offered quick advice on what phrases to use when we realized our limited selection of “Hola,” “Gracias,” and “Por favor” wouldn’t cut the mustard.

Meanwhile, Look and Ask helped Izzy decipher which of the unrecognizable shampoos and conditioners would be best for her hair after a travel mishap saw the supply we packed leak into her travel bag. The AI could read the Spanish labels to her to help identify and filter out ingredients she knows to avoid, and we ended up buying a few extra bottles of the conditioner she found to bring home after she fell in love with it.

It can't be understated how useful the smart specs are simply as sunglasses too.

My Optics pair features Transitions XTRActive lenses, transitioning fast from clear to shaded as I moved between indoor and outdoor spaces, which was super handy for someone like me who wears glasses all the time. Meanwhile, the polarized gold HSTN lenses were perfect for Izzy as she spent hours of her day baking in high-UV weather.

Thanks to the charging case, my specs rarely ran out of battery, but even when they did, I could still rely on them just fine as stylish shades.

Of course, the controversial aspect is the camera. Beyond the AI assistance, it was helpful for snapping quick photos and first-person clips for the travel vlog I’m looking to cut together.

Though whenever I went to snap a photo, I had flashes of the story about Meta contractors who claimed to have seen intimate moments captured through the specs. Shots of either of us in swimwear went nowhere near the glasses’ snapper, and I kept a careful eye on who was in the background of any shots I did take.

We were also a little worried that someone might not like us using the glasses at all in their presence, though thankfully no one took any issue with us.

These fears and considerations do create points of friction when it comes to using Meta’s glasses—or any smart glasses, for that matter. While the Facebook company is the best-known for smart eyewear right now it is far from alone, and while it's making efforts to clean up its public perception smart glasses will be tarred with the same brush if any brand steps out of line.

I also don’t think Meta’s efforts are perfect so far, at least not yet. I’d like to see more work across social and hardware platforms to root out smart glasses misuse; I believe better, more thorough privacy rules are necessary to make it crystal clear what data is and isn’t shared with Meta and its staff, and I’m not convinced I could trust it with the immense amount of data its rumored super sense feature would capture from my daily life — blunders like its Instagram AI image use plan and backtrack don’t fill me with confidence in its AI decision making.

At the same time, my week falling back in love with the Meta glasses, and my wife loving her Oakley smart specs, proves there’s something really fun and useful about the tech that I equally don’t want to see taken away or banned outright.

With other brands joining in on intelligent eyewear — recently Samsung demonstrated its own pairs at Galaxy Unpacked — it’s clear the tech industry is storming ahead, just as it has with exciting emerging technologies in the past.

I just hope a middle ground can be found, because smart specs represent a serious privacy nightmare beyond other gadgets we’ve relied on. If the tech doesn’t hold itself to account, we could see even more regulation and public backlash than we’ve seen already, and that could kill off my favorite tech sector of recent years before it has a chance to thrive.

While the tech world is gearing up for the debut of Samsung’s new foldables at Unpacked next week — with the company teasing some major changes to its lineup — here in the UK we’re finally able to get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy XR headset.

It's now available outside the US and Korea for the first time since its launch in October of last year, and I’ve been taking the headset for a spin after Samsung sent me a review a few weeks ago, and seeing how it compares to my trusty Meta Quest 3.

Now, I could just rehash a lot of what our Editor at Large, Lance Ulanoff, said in his Samsung Galaxy XR hands-on — praising the OLED screen, describing the comfort of the headset over several sessions, and listing the apps I love in XR that elevate the Android experience beyond what's possible on a phone or laptop. But I won't do that here.

Instead I'm putting my body (well, head and neck comfort) on the line to bring you the return of my favorite VR headset testing format: can I spend a whole week wearing the Samsung Galaxy XR?

The short answer? Yes, but it could be comfier. Read on for more about my experience.

Into the Android XR-verse

Just to be clear, I didn't wear the Galaxy XR headset 24/7 — I haven't been walking around my local supermarket immersed in XR, or sleeping in my Samsung headset .

I spent my whole working day in the headset (taking it off only for my lunch breaks, and to use the bathroom), and also wore it for a couple of hours each evening, to unwind with a movie or a game.

I also made sure to spend at least a day relying on only the hardware in the Samsung Galaxy XR’s box — i.e., the headset.

Software-wise, I used everything I’d normally rely on my PC or phone to work and stay entertained, and also had access to the Explorer Pack — a suite of software and subscriptions worth £665 that you'll get for free with a purchase of the Galaxy XR until December 16.

A quick aside on this pack: with a year's access to premium Gemini models (and 5TB of digital Google Cloud storage), plus a year of YouTube Premium, a Calm subscription, and plenty more, it's a really solid addition to the XR experience — I'll be writing more about my experience with its services soon.

Anyway, back to the headset itself…

Things got off to a good start on day one. Thanks to the XR multitasking I was able to have a giant floating Slack window keeping me in touch with my TechRadar colleagues, and a second giant floating YouTube window featuring the latest episode of one of my many podcasts or music playlists to keep me engaged, flanking a Google doc page for whatever I was working on, which I wrote in using a floating keyboard that reacts to my finger movements.

I could open Google Chrome tabs too, and conveniently flick through and between windows using eye controls — the headset relies on eye-tracking to determine what buttons I want to press, which I indicate by simply pinching my fingers while my hand rests lazily in front of me.

I was even able to join meetings virtually, with digital avatars that were good, but not yet great at representing me or mimicking my real-world facial expressions. My Galaxy avatar looked a bit too cartoonish for work meetings, and my Google avatar looked permanently distressed (which I don’t think is my general state of being), and was also missing my glasses, which felt weird — I always wear them, so it felt like the avatar was missing some of my identity.

That aside, I quickly found that any job which relies on lots of basic operations (essentially anything that isn’t something like intense video editing, though there are Play Store apps for less sophisticated video editing needs) is a breeze on the Galaxy XR headset. However, as the novelty faded, I hit my first hurdle: speed.

Gotta type fast!

Eye-tracking controls are neat, and generally XR controls are incredibly intuitive, but the keyboard is not as responsive as even the most basic physical keyboard. This slowed my typing pace to a crawl, and with deadlines looming over me I couldn’t spend my days steadily working through sentences at a snail pace.

The ideal alternative would be a Bluetooth keyboard that pairs with your headset, and most standard models will get the job done after you’ve connected one. I gave one a quick try, and it was much more effective than the virtual keyboard for actually working productively in XR — the brief pause I had to contend with between virtual key presses was eliminated.

My predicament gave me an excuse, however, to see how the headset works when paired with a PC — giving me the massive virtual displays of XR combined with the convenience of a fully powered desktop.

The perfect setup would involve a Samsung Galaxy Book, which pairs more seamlessly with the headset, like the Vision Pro and a MacBook pair for Apple users. However I don’t have a Galaxy Book, so I instead had to turn to Virtual Desktop.

It’s an app I’ve used previously to pair Meta headsets with my PC, and it’s very effective. The connection, even in a room a few meters from where my router lives, is seamless, with next to no delay between what I do on my PC and see on my headset’s view. Plus, with the ability to drag displays around and resize them, I could create the ultimate multi-monitor setup.

The downside is that you can’t access the full multitasking capabilities of the Galaxy XR headset within the Virtual Desktop app. Other apps seem not to suffer from these issues; however the trouble is that several, such as Google’s PC Connect, weren’t available in the UK when I was conducting my tests, and it seems that every app has a downside (for example, PC Connect only lets you stream a single monitor, not multiple).

This compatibility friction with non-Samsung PCs would be the biggest change I’d like to see addressed from a productivity standpoint, as otherwise the Galaxy XR excels on the software side.

My other two big changes would be to the design: the addition of a silicone facial interface and a top strap.

I can’t feel my head when I’m with you

The UK, where I’m based, has been buffeted by heat waves in recent weeks, including while I was testing the Galaxy headset. In homes designed to retain heat, and which lack A/C, this means things can get pretty hot and sweaty, which isn’t ideal when a headset is strapped to your face — and it’s even less ideal when you can feel that sweat being soaked up by the fabric facial interface.

If I was in charge of making headsets I’d mandate that all facial interfaces are made of silicone, or at least that headsets come with a swappable silicone interface, or a silicone cover for the fabric interface, in the box. Unfortunately I can't force such a change on Samsung, but hopefully it’s a change it’ll make for the Galaxy XR 2; it’s more hygienic, and makes the headset easier to share, and I’ve found it doesn’t impact the comfort at all (if anything it makes me feel more at ease in the headset, as I know I’m not immersed in months-old sweat).

As for a top strap (one which runs over the top of my head rather than simply around it), I firmly believe it would help to make the headset comfier to wear for long stretches, as it would further spread the weight of the device across my head.

Day one wasn’t too bad, but by the midpoint of day two I was feeling a little discomfort. By day four I was ready to give up my challenge; and the end of day five couldn’t come fast enough.

Samsung gets so much else right in terms of the Galaxy XR's comfort — chiefly moving the weight of its bulky battery to an external puck, so that you’re only carrying 545g on your head — so it’s a shame that the headset is let down by something as simple as its headband.

For a few hours I found it was fine, but for my extreme testing sessions it didn’t hold up.

Yet again, then, I’ve found that I don’t really want to spend my whole day inside a VR headset, even though the Samsung Galaxy XR headset represents a serious improvement in terms of visual performance (courtesy of its superb OLED screen), the usefulness of its features, including eye-tracking (which I’ve previously found is quite gimmicky), and delivering solid multitasking performance (aided by the expansive app library of the Play Store) compared to the last time I tried a similar exercise with the Meta Quest Pro a few years ago.

Even if I won’t be spending all my time in the Galaxy XR, I plan to wear it plenty more, albeit just for more casual sessions, and I’ll definitely be taking it on a flight, as soon as I have the opportunity, to see how it fares — perhaps that’s where it’ll really shine.

Tech companies large and small — including the likes of Meta, Samsung, and Google (and perhaps even Apple) — are betting that smart glasses become one of the leading device form factors of the future. But this week it became clear that they're facing an increasingly strong backlash against the technology.

There's one problem in particular: cameras. These tiny, embedded recording devices make it easier to record your kids' cute mishaps, your latest mountain bike ride, and a first-person view of anything without needing to get your phone out, but they also enable a certain level of surreptitious photo and video capturing that isn't possible with a phone.

And there's no doubt that bad actors are using these smart glasses for unwholesome purposes: some glasses owners have been paying modders to disable the warning light that should appear whenever recording is actively happening.

We're now at the stage where smart glasses owners are worried about wearing them in public, such is the growing negativity around them. Here's what we've learned in the last few days, and what might happen next.

An inevitable 'collapse into surveillance tech'

Smart glasses with cameras are nothing new of course, but stories around these devices being modded to operate without recording lights (something Meta has now moved to block), as well as reports that future Meta Ray-Bans could be recording all the time, seems to have prompted a new wave of anti-smart glasses sentiment.

Even the celebrities are weighing in: pop icon Lorde was less than complimentary about smart specs on stage recently, leaving her audience in no doubt about her feelings about the tech, while rapper and producer Tyler, the Creator has declared that "anyone who uses these glasses is a real weirdo".

Some of the rich and famous are still on board — you can actually buy Kylie Jenner-branded Meta Glasses, if you want — but most of the online reaction is critical of the technology. A quick peek at Reddit reveals comments like "all internet and computer tech seems to inevitably collapse into surveillance tech" and "people are choosing to be a walking Flock camera" (if you don't get the reference, read this).

Users are referencing Black Mirror and calling for the technology to be banned outright, and using terms like "creep goggles" to describe the devices. While a ban is unlikely at this point, there are some legal changes happening: Illinois looks set to be the first US state to ban smart glasses while driving, not because of any sneaky recording capabilities, but because they might prove to be a distraction to drivers.

Over in South Korea, meanwhile, a man is facing criminal charges after admitting to using smart glasses to cheat on a test. The camera captures the questions, on-board AI figures out what the answers are, and the person sitting the exam writes down the answers. There's more than one way to misuse the camera technology.

However, lawmakers don't yet seem convinced that these AI-powered glasses represent a privacy threat. Regulators in the European Union have reportedly bowed to US pressure in deciding that wearables were exempt from having to include removable batteries, like some other gadget types are when sold in the EU.

What happens next?

While there are some limited efforts to curb the use of smart glasses then, at this stage they're small scale and localized. To try and nudge things along, activists in London have been busy putting up fake Meta Glasses ads on bus stops (below), making a point about surveillance. One of the ads uses an optical illusion to turn the face of Kylie Jenner into a creepy skeleton, with the tagline "we're always watching".

Recording everything we see and do constantly? It’s giving fascism, not fashion It’s just been revealed Meta is planning to make the glasses “continuously record audio while taking photos every few seconds” without any warning light*Literally NO ONE asked for this#noncegoggles*Source: the FT

— @everyonehateselon.bsky.social (@everyonehateselon.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T18:40:05.934Z

Cast your mind back to 2012 when Google Glass launched, and you'll remember that we've been debating these issues for years. There are clearly benefits to wearable specs that can give you hands-free directions, translations, and information without you having to take your phone out, but it seems the concerns over covert surveillance are outweighing the positives in the public's mind.

Given the growing influence of AI tech and how well-suited these wearables are to taking in and processing information, it doesn't seem likely that the tech will be restricted any time soon. For several years now we've been seeing demos of smart glasses that can see and understand the world around them, and those capabilities are on the way whether we like it or not.

If, as rumored, Apple does make its own version of smart glasses, it's going to be interesting to see how this famously privacy-focused company deals with the issues of surveillance. A recording light that cannot be switched off is a good start, but as we've already mentioned, existing users are already cautious of wearing their smart specs around other people.

Later this year we're going to see more smart glasses from Google and Samsung, with Gemini AI ready and waiting to tell you everything you need to know about what you're looking at — which of course requires a camera. As per Google, the company is aware that people won't wear these specs if the privacy concerns are too great, and its solution is mostly to make sure the recording light is noticeable and cannot be tampered with.

"If people don't feel comfortable wearing these glasses, and privacy is part of this, they just won't wear the glasses," Google's Juston Payne told Tom's Guide this week. "It’s as simple as that." The new Google and Samsung wearables are scheduled to arrive later this year, but the companies involved still have a way to go when it comes to shifting user opinion.

• Meta reportedly has a new AI glasses prototype
• It is helping the company finalize a super sensing AI model
• Meta execs apparently aren't yet certain what rules the all seeing AI should follow

Meta is reportedly trialling a new super-sensing AI glasses prototype that aim to offer an ultimate level of assistance, for the small price of capturing your every moment.

The basic idea is that, because personal AI assistance gets better the more the AI knows you, by having you smart specs watch every detail of your life, the assistant can then offer more insightful help.

It could, for example, know if your fridge has milk in because it has seen inside it, or remind you not to forget your keys as you go to leave home. It could remember that gift your friend was desperately hoping to get for their birthday, or remind you the name of someone you’ve met before, if you're forgotten and are too embarrassed to ask.

This kind of tool would undeniably be pretty handy, but the extreme cost would be that your glasses would have to be always on — otherwise the AI might not see or hear the crucial information you’ll need later.

However, this incredible level of insight could be very easily abused — so you’d either have to really trust the company capturing it, or just not care if it knows everything about you.

This latest super-sensing leak comes via the Financial Times (behind a paywall) which reports that Meta is currently testing a pair of specs that achieve super-sensing by capturing continuous audio, and snapping photos every few seconds.

The more staccato image feed is likely an effort to conserve battery — according to previous leaks, existing Meta glasses have all the hardware they need to pull off super sensing, but their batteries wouldn’t be able to last long enough for it to be widely useful.

According to the report, Meta is also still trying to work on some other aspects, like whether the recording light LED should be displayed or not. When you’re recording it normally would be — super sense would be capturing people around you who might wish to know if they’re on camera — though sources have told the FT that there are plans for it to not to be displayed.

Considering that Meta just made a big post about privacy, and even updating the specs to disable tricks modders have been using to allow the specs to record without the light coming on, I’d be surprised if it took the no-light approach, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Man vs machine

You might also remember a story we shared in March about Meta contractors who claimed to be able to see images and videos taken with the glasses.

Essentially, in order to use Meta’s AI you agree to allow the company to see information about your AI communications, including videos and photos. This seemingly includes photos and videos you take using hands-free voice controls — which does technically involve Meta AI, as it has to action your request.

If an always-on AI is seeing every detail of your life there’s potentially a lot more scope for you to capture sensitive data that you'd rather not let Meta's contractors (or anyone else frankly) see. Encouragingly, according to people familiar with Meta’s super-sensing technology, there are plans to never store the raw footage and audio — meaning Meta nor the user could access it.

Instead, the system would extract the metadata from the capture, and only that would be uploaded — metadata is data about data, so imagine if instead of showing someone a photo you just described what’s in it and where it is.

There’s still some room for personal data to leak through this system, but with the correct safeguards it would have far fewer privacy implications. The big obvious gap would be the privacy of those around you — people who, unlike you the glasses wearer, might not have consented for Meta to store any kind of data about them.

The FT report adds there are also debates over whether Meta’s AI should be allowed to use this metadata for training purposes, in order for it to keep up with the capabilities of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic’s models.

While leaks should be taken with a pinch of salt, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear that he wants to offer these kinds of features on his company’s glasses. Most recently he said in an investor call that he wants smart glasses “to be a personal agent that’s with you all day long, helping you remember things and achieve your goals.”

So the advent of technology like super-sense is most likely a matter of when not if, though with battery hardware constraints persisting (especially if you want slim and light glasses), and with privacy being such a hot-button issue, I expect it might be a while before we see super sense in action.

Whenever it arrives, we'll just have to hope that it’s implemented in the right way, and with appropriate safeguards. Such a tool could potentially offers some incredible accessibility benefits, but if the privacy cost is too great the I don’t see it taking off in the way I’m sure Meta would want it to.

Do you remember the metaverse? If you don’t, don’t worry. In 2026, four years into the AI revolution that’s changing the world forever, you could easily be forgiven for thinking it was a strange fever dream you had back in 2021. You might even have odd memories of seeing a blocky version of Mark Zuckerberg floating about in a Minecraft-inspired hellscape, conducting meetings with people who could walk with no legs, while the real Mark Zuckerberg was looking at the whole thing through VR goggles. At least, that’s my memory of it.

I could be suffering from the Mandela effect, but I distinctly remember something off about the legs. They fixed that in a later version, but that’s my overriding memory — no legs. Oh, and Mark Zuckerberg assuring us that this was the future. He’d spent tens of billions of dollars on it, even changing the company name from Facebook to Meta, just to let us know he was really serious about the metaverse. Even if the legs didn’t work.

The problem was, it looked laughable. While everything in the technology world to do with games and special effects was moving in the direction of hyper-realism, the metaverse was moving in the opposite direction, towards the sort of blocky graphics that small children enjoy. But even that didn’t really answer the most basic question about the metaverse. Why? What possible advantage was there for us all to meet in a VR space where clunky avatars of ourselves could interact… badly?

Then AI happened and Meta abruptly forgot about the metaverse and pivoted towards the mission of putting personal superintelligence in all our hands instead, which sounds as terrifying and dangerous as it actually is, but we are where we are. At least when Zuckerberg was obsessed with the metaverse, we could ignore him. It existed somewhere “over there”, in Meta-land, where we could let him get on with it. Now he’s right up in our business again.

The rise of a bad idea

I’ve always been fascinated by how Zuckerberg got into the metaverse and why he became so obsessed with it. The origins of the metaverse go way back. In March 2014, Facebook bought Oculus, the VR company, for about $2 billion. This was where his passion for VR started. Think of it as the seed, not the full obsession.

By July 2021, Zuckerberg gave a long interview to Casey Newton at The Verge about Facebook becoming a “metaverse company” and described it as an “embodied internet”. Then, on October 28, 2021, his obsession became the company identity. Zuckerberg announced that Facebook the company was becoming Meta at Connect 2021, saying the new company brand would focus on bringing the metaverse to life.

I can see the logic. As a business strategy, that made sense. As a product ordinary people were expected to use, it was much harder to understand. Zuckerberg did not want Meta/Facebook to be trapped inside someone else’s platform again. Facebook had won on social, but on mobile it remained dependent on Apple and Google for distribution, privacy rules, app-store policies and hardware. The metaverse looked like a chance to own the next operating system of social life: hardware, avatars, identity, payments, meetings, gaming, work, commerce — the whole stack. In his 2021 founder’s letter, he framed the metaverse as the “next chapter of the internet” and said Meta would become “metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”

Facebook had obviously had its problems — it was scandal-ridden. It had let advertisers target vulnerable teenagers, helped fake news spread, and enabled the spread of hate speech linked to atrocities in Myanmar. Perhaps Zuckerberg was looking for a way out of Facebook, and the metaverse offered that.

What I still didn’t understand was why he didn’t see what the rest of us saw — that it looked terrible and offered no real benefit to users. Then I read Sarah Wynn-Williams’ tell-all book about Facebook, Careless People, and it all started to make sense.

To say the book made my jaw hit the floor on several occasions would be an understatement. It’s an absolute page-turner, and your reactions grow from mild amusement to shock, then disbelief, then absolute outrage the further through the book you get. I’m aware of the criticisms of Wynn-Williams: that it is a book written by a disgruntled employee, and that she dodges a lot of personal responsibility for her part in the various misdeeds of the company. However, in another perfect example of the Streisand effect, the fact that Meta obtained a legal order in the United States to prevent her from saying anything negative about the company — at all — made me want to pick it up, and I’m glad I did.

Because now I get it — Zuckerberg seems to have spent years in an environment where too few people were willing to tell him when his ideas weren’t good. According to Wynn-Williams, he was surrounded by sycophants. When he had bad ideas, like the ill-fated Internet.org, he wouldn’t let them go and persisted with them, even when they were obviously going to fail. The people around him enabled him because he was simply too powerful. They even let him win at the board games he liked to play with them at his house or on his jet, and — crucially — he didn’t notice that they were letting him win. I can imagine that in that environment, nobody inside Meta would want to tell Zuckerberg that his metaverse was the equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes, especially if they wouldn’t even risk beating him at Settlers of Catan.

Wynn-Williams only mentions the metaverse in her epilogue. It happened after she was brutally fired from Facebook. Perhaps selfishly, I wish she’d been there for the metaverse period, because I would love to read firsthand accounts of how and why Zuckerberg persisted with such an obviously bad idea.

The fall of the metaverse

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Zuckerberg. The metaverse graphics did get better over time and Apple ventured slightly into the same territory with its Apple Vision Pro, even after the metaverse had turned into a smoldering wasteland. The fact is, people don’t enjoy wearing VR goggles for extended periods of time, and for normal people, VR lacks that one killer app. There doesn’t seem to be anything you can do in a VR space that you can’t do elsewhere much more easily.

The metaverse didn’t really die with a bang, but with a whimper. It faded through layoffs, spending cuts and the AI pivot. If I had to put a date on it, I’d say early 2023 was when Meta’s narrative moved on. In February and March 2023, Zuckerberg started talking about Meta’s “year of efficiency” and announced huge layoffs and cost-cutting. OpenAI had launched ChatGPT in November 2022, and by early 2023, generative AI had swallowed the oxygen that ideas like the metaverse need to survive. Every tech company was talking about AI now, not virtual offices and avatar legs.

The metaverse was over. We all forgot about it and moved on.

I’m glad I read Wynn-Williams’ book, because now I can understand how Facebook let the metaverse happen. And if there’s one thing I learned from reading it, it’s that money and power can bring you a lot of things, but common sense requires neither.

• A new update is coming to Meta's smart glasses
• It should stop modders from disabling the light that lets people know you're using the camera
• Meta is also targeting modders on and off its platform

Last month we shared details of reports that Meta glasses were being modded to bypass privacy protections and turn them into secret spy glasses. Now Meta has revealed it will update the glasses’ software to detect whether its light has been tampered with (or destroyed) to prevent recording.

Whenever you take a photo or video with Meta glasses, a white light appears on the front of the glasses to signal to people around you that you’re filming.

For creeps looking to be more secretive with their recordings, this light is a hindrance, but Meta has imposed more basic tamper-proof features since launch. That is, any attempt to use the camera while the light is blocked — such as by a piece of tape — wouldn’t be allowed. The trouble is, modders have found ways to open up the glasses and disable or damage the light and its mechanisms that prevent it from showing, without getting flagged by the system — meaning you can use the camera as you normally would, but without anyone else knowing.

This is (to put it bluntly) not good, and when the reports came out, a Meta spokesperson told me that the company was looking into ways to disable this workaround.

They also explained that Meta is working hard to stamp out advertisements for these kinds of services — some of which appeared on its own Facebook Marketplace platform — with its latest announcement explaining this means banning accounts, taking down listings, and taking legal action against people or businesses that tamper with its tech.

Beyond the detail of updating software to prevent tampering, the whole article from Meta is focused on privacy, and crucially how Meta keeps you and others safe.

Thanks to people misusing its tech, the wider notoriety these gadgets are getting again, and reports of contractors seeing recorded images and videos that Meta glasses users might not have fully realized they could see, Meta and smart glasses makers have been facing major privacy questions.

With this article, Meta seems to answer many of them, though we’ll have to wait and see if it can convince users — or if they might be tempted by the rise of cameraless smart glasses.

The only way is cameraless?

Even Realities, another smart glasses firm, recently announced it has raised $150 million in investment at a $1 billion valuation — not too shabby for a company that only launched its first XR gadget in 2024.

Instead of Meta’s camera-first approach, Even Realities went for a display-first approach. Information is shown visually as green text and basic diagrams to provide features such as AI advice, navigational directions, or a speech appearing on a virtual prompter. Its specs also lack speakers, though that’s not true for all glasses of their kind.

Losing out on the camera is, of course, a major privacy win for some, as there’s no possible way for the glasses to see something they shouldn’t or be used to spy.

The thing is, I think these kinds of glasses are pretty terrible. Having tested a few at home, the ones without a camera just aren’t worth wearing.

Smart glasses, despite being increasingly popular, are in their infancy, which in the tech world means you can expect to pay a fair sum for relatively limited features — that’s the price of being an early adopter. That’s especially true, I’ve found, for these XR glasses specifically, because while they can offer several tools like navigation, on-screen translations, a prompter, and notification pop-ups, their usefulness is pretty limited.

How often do you need a prompter? Or one-way translation tools? In the case of the latter, because these kinds of glasses often have you rely on your phone to set up the translation feature or access other features, you might as well just turn to something like Google Translate — which has conversation modes so that two people can talk and see translations through a single device.

The software I’ve found for these types of specs can also be pretty terrible with sluggishness, inaccuracies, and crashes — and if I, as someone who tests smart glasses professionally, have trouble, I can’t imagine what less techy people must think.

Additionally, the green text can be hard to make out on a bright day if you’re outside, making on-screen directions difficult to see.

While admittedly more limited feature-wise, the Meta glasses and smart specs like them feel like way better value for money. From Meta specifically, the software is generally very reliable, and more broadly, the ability to snap a photo whenever — either to capture a moment or to provide context for an AI’s response — comes in handy so often.

Even if it isn’t as good as my phone camera, the ability to record a memory, hands-free and without being taken out of the moment, is so utterly delightful.

Yes, there are privacy challenges which need to be hashed out more formally, as even without the ability to record privately there is still plenty of room for creeps to harass people with this kind of gadget, but if you want a pair of smart glasses right now there simply isn’t a better option.

Walk deep into Walt Disney Imagineering’s sprawling, surprisingly unassuming Glendale campus, and you’ll eventually find Studio C.

It’s where Imagineering mixes the audio for its attractions, but when I recently stepped inside, I quickly realized it was much more than a recording studio. The room is lined with dozens upon dozens of speakers designed to recreate the sound field of Disney attractions, letting Imagineers hear a ride long before guests ever do.

During my visit, I watched a live mix session for Zootopia: Hot Pursuit, Shanghai Disneyland’s trackless dark ride, and the experience was almost uncanny. Sound moved seamlessly around the room, tracking the ride vehicle as though I were actually inside the attraction.

That same room became the proving ground for one of Imagineering’s most unusual engineering challenges yet: figuring out how to mix the audio for Soarin’ Across America.

The reimagined version of Disney’s iconic flight simulator debuted this summer at both EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, California, timed for America’s Semiquincentennial celebration. Disney’s Unscripted behind-the-scenes video confirmed that Imagineers used the Apple Vision Pro during production of Soarin’ Across America, but it left one obvious question unanswered: why? That’s what I wanted to find out.

So I spoke with Greg Lhotka, Sr. Manager, Audio Media Design at Walt Disney Imagineering, who walked me through the surprisingly complicated process behind mixing one of Disney’s most technically demanding attractions.

“For Soarin’ Across America, we utilized Studio C not only as a production facility, but as a proving ground for an entirely new field-mixing approach developed specifically for this film. On the sound design side, we partnered with Skywalker Sound, and together we used Studio C to prototype and validate a custom speaker configuration that closely mirrors the unique audio architecture of the Soarin’ theaters.”

If you’ve ridden Soarin’, you already know why that matters. Riders are lifted into the air in three stacked rows facing a massive curved projection screen, while sound moves not only around the theater but above and below you as well. As Lhotka explained, the attraction uses a four-tiered speaker system — upper, mid-level, lower, and a dedicated floor array — creating an audio environment that’s far more complex than a traditional movie theater.

Having now ridden Soarin’ Across America several times, it’s easy to appreciate the result. The updated film sweeps from New York Harbor and the Grand Canyon to California’s rolling hills and countless landscapes in between through soaring aerial cinematography, practical effects, and a soundtrack that glides almost effortlessly alongside you. The audio shifts just as fluidly as the visuals, making each transition feel natural as the ride carries you across some of America’s most recognizable landmarks and scenic vistas.

Studio C could simulate much of that during production, but not all of it.

“For Soarin’ films, mixing historically required the construction of scaffolding inside the theater to reach the appropriate listening height for final mix decisions,” Lhotka explained. “Even then, the process was far from ideal, as the ride canopy significantly influences the acoustics. For this project, one of the key requirements was that the theater remain fully operational and open to guests throughout production — eliminating the possibility of scaffolding altogether.”

That constraint forced Imagineering to rethink its entire workflow.

“The challenge was clear: how do you mix a show with over 1,000 audio tracks and an extremely complex panning matrix while seated in a ride vehicle? The solution came through an innovative use of new AR technologies. By leveraging advanced screen-sharing capabilities, we were able to remotely control our production system — directly connected to the theater — while seated in the ride vehicle itself. This allowed us to place virtual screens in our field of view, effectively bringing the mixing console into the theater environment.”

Before anyone tested it inside the attraction, Studio C became the test lab.

“Studio C once again played a critical role as our testbed. Over the course of a week, we evaluated multiple configurations to confirm that things could be controlled precisely in this way, and that the AR headset’s external cameras would allow us to view the film clearly in the theater’s low-light conditions while simultaneously monitoring the virtual screens. The final configuration exceeded expectations.”

Once validated, the workflow moved from experiment to production.

“This workflow was ultimately used as the solution — and it became the method by which Soarin’ Across America was mixed. The result is a soundtrack that was shaped directly from the guest’s perspective, using tools and techniques that reflect our continued commitment to innovation, immersion, and storytelling.”

Having experienced Studio C for myself, that revelation immediately clicked. The room is already designed to recreate the feeling of sitting inside a Disney attraction with remarkable accuracy. But even a purpose-built facility couldn’t perfectly replicate Soarin’s unique acoustics. The only place left to finish the mix was inside the attraction itself.

It’s an elegant solution that solved two problems at once. Guests never lost access to Soarin’ during production, and Imagineering’s audio team was able to shape the soundtrack from the exact seat every future rider would occupy. Rather than approximating the experience from scaffolding or even Studio C, the final mix was crafted where it mattered most: inside the attraction itself.

• Conversation focus is being limited to three hours a month for some Meta glasses users
• For a longer 15 hours a month limit you'll need to pay for Meta One Premium
• The feature is handled on device, so it's unclear why it has been paywalled

The Meta Ray-Bans and other AI glasses can perform a slew of useful tasks thanks to their wearable hardware and digital assistant — but Meta has just announced that one of those features will be getting serious limitations as it introduces a paid subscription plan that will unlock more usage time.

Conversation focus was showcased at Meta Connect last year, and is essentially an audio mixer for your real-life conversations. When you switch the feature on — using the voice command "Hey Meta, start conversation focus" — the specs’ microphones will pick up the voice of the person you’re looking at, the AI will separate their voice from the background noise, and then your glasses’ speakers will play what they’re saying to you to amplify their speech and make it stand out.

It’s an impressive feature, and very useful if you struggle to hear people in crowded spaces — or are starting to become a little hard of hearing and want a voice boost much of the time — but this is the feature Meta is now starting to limit. If you only have the free account that you create when you set up your glasses in the Meta AI app, you’ll just have three hours of conversation focus a month (as spotted by The Verge).

If you want more hours you’ll need to sign up to a paid Meta One Premium subscription, which costs $19.99 per month. Notably this subscription doesn’t unlock unlimited conversation focus access; instead your limit is bumped up to 15 hours a month.

In addition to this, Meta One Premium will also give you access to more advanced Meta AI reasoning models through the app, and expanded access to image and video generation models.

Was this inevitable?

We know that unlimited free AI access isn’t sustainable. Every AI query has a data center and energy cost to AI companies like Meta, and eventually they'll need to recuperate those costs or risk serious financial struggles.

However, no matter how inevitable a Meta AI glasses subscription seemed, this isn’t how I imagined it would roll out — frankly it’s quite a bad look for Meta, and I hope it reverses course.

My frustrations with this change as a Meta AI glasses user are three-fold. First, having something that was previously free taken away is never fun, especially as features like conversation focus felt like they’d already been paid for via the purchase of Meta’s glasses.

If Meta One had instead locked a new more powerful AI model behind a subscription, or some powerful new tool, that would feel very different. Your glasses would still do everything you were told they could do at launch, but to get some serious upgrades you’d need to pay up — sure this wouldn’t feel all that amazing either, but at least Meta wouldn’t be seen to be taking a feature away and holding it hostage.

My next frustration is that it’s conversation focus specifically that is being taken away. As I've mentioned, this is something of an accessibility tool, and while I’m sure most users only activate it periodically if there’re in a very noisy bar or somewhere similarly packed, for some I can see conversation focus being a tool they rely on frequently if they have more general hearing troubles but aren’t quite ready for a more sophisticated aid.

The flip side, unfortunately, is that if conversation focus isn’t a tool everyone uses all the time it’s the one least likely to actually inconvenience most Meta glasses users, allowing the company to experiment with paid access to tools without upsetting a large section of their consumer base.

Finally, according to Meta itself, conversation focus is handled entirely on-device. Your Meta AI glasses can offer the function without an internet connection, meaning it shouldn’t be costing its data centers anything to process.

In a way, taking unlimited conversation focus usage away is like Meta limiting how many photos your glasses can take a month. All the hardware and software tech is on your device; it’s just being locked away in what seems like a classic case of corporate greed.

Now, the silver lining at the moment is that if you haven’t noticed any rate limits yet, or heard about Meta One through your specs, it’s likely that your glasses are still working the same as they always have. As explained in the help article, “Meta One is currently in limited testing and isn't available everywhere yet.”

Additionally, I’m hoping the fact that Meta One is still in testing means Meta won’t be afraid to reverse course, especially as this decision feels so nonsensical for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Or perhaps it’ll be forced to rethink things if its AI glasses rivals (including the incoming Android XR specs) boast similar features at a similar price with no such paywall or usage limit.

Otherwise, this feels like yet another unforced error for Meta in the smart glasses space. How can we now trust tha tMeta won’t paywall any AI glasses feature we’ve previously had access to?

Following the announcement of its more budget-friendly AI glasses — including a pair styled by Kylie Jenner — I hoped it might be getting back on the right track. This latest announcement has knocked my confidence, but the ball is still in Meta’s court — perhaps Meta Connect 2026 will see it properly turn things around.

• Meta unveils $299 / £269 / AU$599 smart glasses (Meta Glasses) designed with EssilorLuxottica
• They match Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses on virtually all features
• They add adjustable nose pieces, and a lot of design and color choices

"It’s pretty easy to make glasses that don’t look good, it turns out," chuckled Meta CTO and Head of Reality Labs, Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, shortly after unveiling a bumper crop of new Meta eyeware, simply called Meta Glasses, all fashioned in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica.

Bosworth says the team argues over "every gram, every quarter of a millimeter" in an effort to bring ever lighter, ever more comfortable, and ever more fashionable AI eyewear to the market. With this foray into making frames with a slightly less well-known brand than Ray-Ban, Meta is bringing the new frames — Adventurer, Fury, and Starfire Kylie [Jenner] Edition — to market at a somewhat startling price: $299 /£269 / AU$599 (not counting prescriptions).

No one size or style fits all when it comes to eyewear, Ankit Brahmbhatt, Meta's Senior Director of Product for AI glasses, told me as he walked me through some of the new frames. There are, he added, eight colorways and 26 different style options.

Ogling the style choices

As I looked around the room in the Manhattan event space, I spotted black, something like ivory, tortoiseshell, deep black, green, and a dark maroon. The frames range from larger and almost boxy-looking to thinner and lighter frames. In fact, many of the EssilorLuxottica frames are so relatively thin and light that you might miss the cameras hidden in the front, and the slightly thicker stems to accommodate components and batteries, and mistake them for normal frames.

Kylie Jenner's cat-eye-style frames are particularly fetching, and surprisingly looked halfway decent on me.

Brahmbhatt told me Meta worked closely with Jenner to develop the design, adding signature touches like a tiny gem in the frame, a mirror in the case, and even Kylie Jenner's voice in the Meta AI.

There are structural changes new to the Essilor Luxottica frames. The nose piece adjusts with a push to three different positions, the stems are bendable at the ends (Bosworth noted that the wires are coated with a kind of cellulose plastic), and the stems actually flex outward. I tried on almost every style I could find, and they were all quite comfortable.

One of the biggest changes, though, is the addition of a small button behind the traditional Meta AI glasses button that you might use to capture a photo or start a video: it's a tiny Meta AI summoning button, and I used it interchangeably with saying, "Hey, Meta."

More and better AI

This is also the first set of Meta AI glasses to feature a Meta AI system backed by the company's more robust Muse Spark models, which provide a more conversational voice, better context awareness, and the ability to tap into the zeitgeist by checking out social media (at one point I asked Meta AI if there was chatter online about fake food, and it confirmed that many were talking about it on social media).

I tried the new Meta AI in a few scenarios, and it ably identified whatever I was looking at (I could hear it snap a picture before the analysis), launched a music playlist based on my surroundings, and translated Arabic print for me.

That all of this comes in for under $299 (Ray-Ban Meta frames start at $379), and without compromising on the 3K video-shooting quality, 12MP photos, microphones, array, or speakers, is remarkable; but these are still relatively early days in the wearable AI space.

Getting it right and making it safe

Design is "really important if you want people to wear them as daily driver glasses," said Meta Head of Industrial Design Peter Bristol, who joined Bosworth on stage and took some questions from reporters.

In perhaps a nod to how thick and oversized AI glasses can look, the pair talked about how they made subtle changes to the designs, slimming down the frames, or simply making them look thinner by, for instance, adding a chamfer along the top edge of the frames, near the brow.

A good design means less friction, which Bristol believes can help with AI adoption.

For Meta, the goal is to "reach every corner of the market," said Bosworth, but that approach does come with risks.

When asked about growing concerns about the privacy of these glasses (there have been reports of people wearing them to illegally photograph women and even tampering with the glasses to turn off the LED "I'm filming you" light), Bosworth acknowledged these issues, but reminded us that Meta had actually "pioneered putting LED on the glasses," and talked about the anti-tampering technology they put in Gen 2 Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. But, he added, it's "a cat and mouse game."

As for what the future holds, I pointed out to Bosworth and Bristol that, while they now have a lot of styles, not everyone wears, or wants to wear glasses. What about smart contacts?

"Absolutely, that one’s top of mind for the design team," said Bristol, adding, "We are thinking and trying the other potential paths, but it’s a complicated space, so glasses is front and center for us.”

Bosworth agreed with the premise of my question, admitting that he’s not a glasses wearer, but is happy to wear Meta AI glasses “because they brought a lot of value — but I’m aware that I’m doing it.

"The design team is absolutely captivated by this question. What are the other ways that we can deliver this capability to people who don’t have glasses on?"

• Illinois is set to ban smart glasses being used while driving
• The bill makes no distinction between glasses with and without displays
• Many online fear that it gives cops too much power to pull drivers over

Illinois is poised to be the first US state to ban smart glasses — of any kind — while you’re driving. Importantly, the bill makes no distinction between smart specs with a display and those without.

Once Governor JB Pritzker approves the bill, people caught flouting the rules could face fines of $75 (or $150 for repeat offenses) and the possibility of misdemeanor or felony charges if involved in a serious crash while wearing smart glasses.

Other states, such as New York, have proposed bills limiting smart glasses use while driving, but so far none have progressed as far as Illinois’ has — though that could soon change if states decide to take Illinois’ lead.

The hope is that this proposal will make roads safer by reducing distractions for drivers.

While there’s possibly some advantage of drivers having, say, navigation on a HUD in front of them to find their destination — which is something Amazon is hoping to offer its delivery drivers with its own smart glasses — attempting to text chat or watch a video on your glasses while driving is a terrible idea.

So, to discourage this kind of dangerous driving, it’s perhaps safer to just ban smart glasses and avoid any possibility of temptation.

Safer, but for who?

While many can agree that having a display distracting you while you drive isn’t ideal, some are questioning why non-display glasses — which are completely hands-free and boast zero visual distractions — are included in the ban.

Some have therefore wondered if there’s an ulterior motive to Illinois’ smart glasses approach, or if it’s at least not very well thought out.

Over on Reddit one user pointed out that the law “Gives cops license to pull over anyone and claim ‘oh, i thought those were smart glasses’” which could be abused by bad actors to write invalid tickets — with the user linking to a viral example of a cop using Florida’s existing driver laws to pull over a woman for texting while driving using a phone in her right hand, and doubling down even when the woman shows she doesn’t have a right hand.

Meanwhile, a commenter replying to Gizmodo’s coverage of this story said the rules have “Nothing to do with driver safety. Everything to do with law enforcement not wanting to be recorded,” as it’s much easier to record police with your smart glasses than holding up a phone.

On the flip side, Illinois does have precedent for banning audio distractions; headphones, earbuds, or other headsets that play audio into both ears are illegal under the state’s vehicle code. One-ear headsets are generally allowed, and there are exemptions for some professions and audio devices that improve hearing, like hearing aids.

Because audio can be a major distraction while driving — you might not hear sirens if you have active noise cancellation turned on, for example — even in places where it isn’t expressly against the law, it is advised against, and can work against you if you’re caught in an accident while immersed in your music.

Smart glasses don’t fully immerse you because they have open-ear audio, but their audio notifications and music playing into both of your ears could cause a distraction.

Additionally, because the tech is evolving so quickly, creating nuanced carve-outs today might lead to legal disputes or confusion down the line, especially as lawmakers aren’t known for being particularly tech-savvy. There’s a simplicity to just banning smart glasses outright while driving.

Of course, these rules are just for one state, assuming they get signed into law at all, but smart glasses regulation seems to be on the agenda for a growing number of local and national governments in an attempt to curb bad actors.

So don’t be surprised if similar rules start being proposed in your local area, and be sure to follow any new smart glasses rules that are introduced if you like using a pair.

• Samsung's XR headset will help you meditate while giving blood
• Employees recently tried the demo, and it'll be available at AWE
• Further expansions are already planned

There are plenty of things in life we know we should be doing but don’t for one reason or another — like eating more vegetables, exercising several times a week, giving our time to good causes, or reading a good book. But for one such activity, giving blood, Samsung and healthcare company Abbott have just showcased a way to make it a bit more bearable: immersive meditation.

To mark World Blood Donor Day, Samsung employees in South Korea had the opportunity to give blood while experiencing immersive meditation, and the company plans to expand the program globally, with events scheduled for the US and Malaysia.

One such activation is happening in just a few days. Attendees at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California, next week (June 15 to 18) can take part in Samsung and Abbott’s four-day blood drive.

I’m currently taking part in a medical trial, and as part of it every couple of months I have to get a lot of blood taken. While I am now used to it, I always get stressed out in the moments before the needle goes in, and I can’t relax until I know it’s all over — so some kind of immersive XR experience would be a help.

It would certainly beat my current method of trying to distract myself by talking the nurse’s ear off.

Analysis/subhead section

We’ve seen XR used in similar ways before, for example, some flights now offer VR headset meditation to help calm nervous fliers, and schools have used VR to help bring education to life. These examples give some ideas for how XR can make other mundane parts of our lives a bit more fun.

Gamifying exercise to make it more exciting is a trend that's always being chased, but too often it struggles to pull folks away from a more traditional routine. So instead, I’d like to see an XR glasses app that can work with any gym equipment.

Imagine having an XR coach there to talk you through a routine, with advice for each machine and stats about your last visit, like what weights you were lifting and pushing you to go a little harder if you can. Treadmill runs could come with immersive routes to jog through, or perhaps you could have a virtual you/rival joining you at each machine, giving you someone to compete against.

My next proposal: a reading companion. I know a few teachers, and many have said it’s harder than ever to get kids to read. If you do try to set a reading and then quiz the kids on what the book is about, they’ll just use AI to summarize the story for them.

So what if an XR glasses or headset app could leverage eye-tracking to follow along as you read to see that you’ve actually gone through a book properly. Parents and teachers can then know their kid has been reading and deserves some congratulations, and for the kid, the glasses could help with understanding or pronouncing words, perhaps provide some visual cues to what they’re reading, and help them find similar books once they’re finished.

I’m not envisioning anything supremely immersive, just a few bits to help readers of all ages engage with a story.

Or perhaps we could use XR to help make doing chores less of a, well, chore.

MR apps have been made to show us where we have and haven’t vacuumed, so something similar for dusting, cleaning the bathroom, and other tasks would be great at keeping my home spotless in every way.

I also love listening to music while I clean, so perhaps an XR app could turn my home into a rave that only plays while I’m tidying, helping me push through chores.

These are just a few fun possible examples, but they showcase some of the reasons and ways XR could be an awesome technology as it develops. We’ll just have to wait and see what Samsung, Google, Meta, Apple, and the rest have up their sleeves.

• Lawmakers in Pennsylvania want new smart glasses rules
• A proposed bill would mandate that glasses display when they are recording video or audio
• This comes after reports that modders are disabling this feature on Meta Ray-Bans for a price

Last week, I covered reports of, let’s face it, creeps who have been modifying their smart glasses (typically Meta Ray-Bans) to secretly record video and snap photos — by disabling the safety light that flashes when the glasses’ camera is in use. Now, Pennsylvania lawmakers want to make private recording with smart glasses a crime.

Representative Joe Ciresi (D-Montgomery), has introduced a bill that would require smart glasses made, sold or used in his state to display a visual indicator (like a light) when the device is recording — though his bill would go beyond video and to audio as well.

Calling the bill’s rules “common-sense privacy safeguards” to prevent the “misuse of emerging technologies.” It would also require device makers to prevent users from disabling the visual indicator.

While Meta has yet to respond to this new proposed bill, a spokesperson did get back to us after my last story, saying, "All technology — whether it's cameras, smartphones, or AI glasses — comes with the same basic expectation: people should behave responsibly and not misuse it.”

Adding “We aggressively target anyone advertising tampering tools, have removed thousands of violating ads and Marketplace listings for these services, and pursue legal action when appropriate," in response to questions about modification services being sold and advertised through Meta’s own Facebook Marketplace platform.

Meta also explained that its teams are working on evolving its measures — so hopefully it’ll find a way to counter the techniques modders have developed to disable the smart glasses' safety light.

The best outcome?

This new bill is one I’m expecting we’ll see echoed across the States and in other regions because it feels like common sense.

As I mentioned before, we’re seeing how folks are being plain weird in public by misusing smart glasses to harass, intimidate, stalk, and spy on people — amongst other creepy behavior — and these actions risk spoiling everyone’s fun.

Cameras on glasses have genuine utility for allowing the AI to identify landmarks or translate signs, or simply snapping a quick first-person shot while you’re on vacation. Having used my Meta Ray-Bans plenty, the camera quality is worse than my phone's, but the big advantage is that the specs can record without taking me out of the moment — you’re living it for real, not behind a phone screen, but still capturing the memory.

But the risks of misuse can be countered by full-on bans, so I’m glad to see Pennsylvania is taking a tactful approach.

We’ll have to see how companies and governments respond to modification services trying to skirt these rules, but this is the best possible next step in the smart glasses safety saga — giving us an increasingly uncommon win in the consumer tech space.

• Code to power facial recognition has been found in the Meta AI app
• This would allow Meta's smart glasses to identify people's faces
• The feature isn't live yet, and Meta claims it may never be, but reactions to it are largely negative

Meta’s smart glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta and the Oakley Meta Vanguard have always been concerning from a privacy perspective, given their ability to photograph and film whoever the wearer happens to be looking at. But they just got even more troubling, as there’s evidence that they might soon get facial recognition.

Wired (via Mashable) has found that the company has quietly been adding code related to facial recognition to the Meta AI app over multiple updates this year.

Its investigation found references to three AI models, one which would detect faces, another that would crop them, and one that'd encode them into biometric data. And while the feature isn’t live, two security researchers who reviewed Wired’s findings claimed that it’s almost ready to launch, if and when Meta chooses to.

In a response, a Meta spokesperson told Wired that "nothing has shipped to consumers and no final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything. If we do decide to roll something out, we will take a thoughtful approach and do so with full transparency. One decision we can be clear about — we are not building a central face database."

A privacy nightmare in the making?

Still, the fact that Meta is already adding relevant code to its app certainly suggests a feature along these lines may well launch. At which point, not only do you need to worry about being photographed or filmed by people’s glasses, but that they could identify you just by looking at you.

Responses to the news on Reddit are largely negative, but also largely unsurprised, given that this is Meta we’re talking about — a company that hasn’t got the best track record for respecting people’s privacy.

One Reddit user commented “is anyone surprised by this, really?”, with others saying “well, that tracks”, “I miss privacy”, and “should be illegal”, among other negative comments.

And while Meta does at least provide some measure of privacy with its smart glasses — such as displaying a light when they’re recording or taking photos — modders can already disable that light, so it’s easy to imagine that any precautions put in place for facial recognition could also be disabled or got around.

• UK government says cheating in exams using smart devices poses a great threat
• Students could soon resort to using smart glasses and invisible earpieces
• It's not just a concern in the UK, and cases are rising in China and the US

The UK government has warned that the rise of smart tech could give students more reason to cheat in their GCSE, AS, and A-level exams, and the threat should not be overlooked.

Chief Regulator of Ofqual (The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation), Sir Ian Bauckham, warns that devices such as hidden earpieces and smart glasses advertised to students via social media could overtake phones as a means of cheating. Speaking with BBC Radio 4, he shared the following:

"We're hearing stories — and I hear this directly from schools as I go up and down the country — of devices like supposedly hidden earpieces, smart glasses that play text covertly on the inside of the glasses that only the wearer can see, and even biros [pens] that have got apparently invisible mini video screens built into them”. "In the worst cases, they could lose all their A-level grades. That's future-altering," he added

Additionally, Bauckham appeared on Ofqual’s Can I Just Qualify That? podcast show, where he revealed that the government has had to “move really fast, because technology is moving fast”. He also said that exam invigilators are now being trained to spot these kinds of smart tech.

Since 2018, the rise of smartphone malpractice in exams has grown substantially, and last summer alone, 2,225 cases where smartphones and other devices were used to cheat were flagged, resulting in 545 cases where students were disqualified.

Having access to mobile phones in schools, Bauckham argues, has opened the doors for a new wave of technology to enable cheating in exams, and from his recent warnings, it’s only going to get more difficult to control. That said, this threat isn’t just limited to UK schools.

Global education systems need to take action

This isn’t the first time smart devices have made their way into the examination hall.

In regions such as China, smart glasses are becoming a popular way to cheat in university exams, allowing students to scan questions, which the device will then display the answers on the lens, Rest of World reported a few weeks back.

Students are even going the distance to rent out their smart glasses to other students to use during exams for between $6-$12 a day, the outlet says, and second-hand online marketplaces like Xianyu are becoming an increasingly popular place for students to source their devices.

Using smart glasses to cheat in exams is one thing, but AI is another growing issue in educational spaces. Not only is AI becoming increasingly difficult to detect in written coursework in the UK, but it’s prevalent in universities across the pond.

In May, Ars Technica reported that 30% of Princeton students are cheating in exams by using AI, but this can be attributed to the institution’s outdated examination codes. The outlet shared that because lecturers don’t monitor exams (the university still adheres to a 19th-century regulation), it makes it easier for students to get away with cheating, and the number of cases is only rising.

According to a survey of Princeton seniors conducted in 2025, almost 30% of students admitted to cheating during an exam. However, in spite of this number, almost 45% of students said they had witnessed fellow classmates cheating, but decided not to report it, even though students must vow to report malpractice.

However, the university is clamping down on this soon. A few weeks ago, Princeton faculty members cast votes in a referendum to write mandatory proctoring for in-person exams into Princeton's laws, and it was a landslide win with only one member opposing. The regulation will come into effect on July 1.

• Modders are charging as little as $50 in the US to alter Ray-Ban Meta specs
• The altered smart glasses are then able to record without the safety light
• This allows bad actors to film secretly and potentially harass people

Update: Since publishing this story Meta has responded to say its tech (like all technology) comes the expectation that "people should behave responsibly and not misuse it." You can read the full statement below. I've also reported on news that Pennsylvanian lawmakers want new smart glasses safety rules, and that story also includes Meta's statement.

Original: $50 or some technical know-how — that’s all it’s taking some to mod their Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to disable one of its most important safety features: the camera light.

The first-person video perspective is incredible for snapping first-person shots while on vacation or just living your day to day, but bad actors have been using smart glasses in more nefarious ways — often to harass women as the BBC reported earlier this year, with that likely to spike again as we enter beach season in the Northern hemisphere.

To help prevent secret recording, the Meta glasses switch on a light that plays the entire time. It sits on the left side of the glasses, creating design symmetry with the camera on the right, and if it’s ever covered (say, by some tape), the glasses will prevent you from recording.

However, as reported by Joanna Stern in a YouTube video, modders can permanently disable this light in a way that doesn’t prevent recording. You just need the technical know-how and some tools, or $50 to $100 to pay someone on places like Facebook Marketplace, adding an unfortunate ironic layer that it’s happening through Meta’s own platform.

This kind of hack isn’t illegal, but it is against Meta’s terms of service. Recording with these now secret spy glasses isn’t necessarily illegal either. It depends on the region's laws surrounding things like recording in public and if you need one- or two-party consent.

I reached out to Meta for comment, and it said "All technology — whether it's cameras, smartphones, or AI glasses — comes with the same basic expectation: people should behave responsibly and not misuse it. We aggressively target anyone advertising tampering tools, have removed thousands of violating ads and Marketplace listings for these services, and pursue legal action when appropriate."

It added that it is looking into evolving its existing measures so that it can continue to deliver safe and secure products.

Please don't ruin the tech I love

My relationship with smart glasses has been a little up and down recently, but overall, I’m still a major advocate for them.

Just like smartwatches before them, smart specs offer truly useful features in ways that are more convenient than our existing tech — I’ve used my own RayBans when I travel to great effect (translating signs, identifying historical sites and monuments, and recording memories without being taken out of the moment), and the tech’s only getting better.

These kinds of modifications risk ruining everyone’s fun. Because if people keep abusing this tech, I can see governments taking a heavy hand with restrictions — either outlawing cameras in specs, or simply banning smart glasses altogether if things get too out of hand.

That would suck.

So I'm hoping there are some fixes Meta can implement, and that other manufacturers follow suit. Perhaps they could also work with governments to introduce precise rule changes, such as making it illegal to record covertly or changing harassment rules so that bad actors are punished.

Because smart glasses are so incredibly cool, and while I have tried a lot of awesome tech over the years, smart specs have always seemed in a league of their own (in a great way). It’s a wearables category that I hope keeps thriving — we just need to make sure it grows the right way so that this dream tech doesn’t become a nightmare for many.

• More hardware is reportedly on the way from Meta
• We could get an always-on AI pendant and new smart glasses
• The smart specs may involve new hardware partners

As well as exploring premium subscriptions for its social media platforms, Meta is also reportedly developing new hardware too: an AI pendant, and smart glasses that are apparently going to be different to the models we've seen before.

This is according to The Information, which says testing for the AI pendant will begin in the coming year. Presumably it works along similar lines to the Limitless AI Pendant which launched in 2024, as Meta acquired Limitless at the end of last year: the device records and processes audio, and can answer queries with its built-in chatbot.

Details are thin on the ground at the moment, but we've seen quite a few of these AI wearables in recent years. From transcribing meetings to telling you what time you need to be at the station to catch the next train home, the idea is they act as constant companions ready to lend a hand at any moment.

We know that ChatGPT developer OpenAI is working on something similar, though again there's not much in the way of solid information about what the something is, or what it'll do. We could be getting gadget launches from two of the biggest names in AI across the course of the next 12 months.

More smart glasses

As for the smart glasses, as per the report in The Information, there are apparently several new models coming. The rumored plan is to bring more partners on board, in addition to Ray Ban, which Meta already works with. As you would expect, Meta's own AI models are going to be providing the intelligence.

The same report mentions a new 'Wearables for Work' project at Meta, intended to drive subscriptions for Meta's AI apps — including an as-yet-unreleased AI agent called Hatch. Meta is apparently aiming to sell 10 million smart glasses in the second half of 2026, in part by expanding sales to more countries.

There's more evidence for the incoming smart glasses via Android Authority: Meta has registered several new pairs of smart specs with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US, a necessary regulatory step for new gadgets. These documents have been filed under the Meta name, which hasn't often been the case with previous wearables.

That might suggest Meta is teaming up with another hardware partner, which lines up with what The Information is saying, but we'll have to wait for confirmation. Many other companies are expected to launch smart glasses soon too, including — perhaps — Apple.

• Xreal just unveiled the xbx a01 smart glasses
• These XR specs are super budget-friendly...
• ...but packed with some impressive features

With its One Pro glasses Xreal seriously hit it out of the park — making arguably the best XR glasses you can buy right now for the private home theatre experience, and easily my favorites. The only issue? They’re pretty darn pricey, as are many of Xreal’s previous specs. That’s about to change however, with the new xbx range.

Standing for 'X by Xreal', and not some Xbox tie-in as I initially thought it was, this sub-brand will champion new glasses lines, starting with the budget-friendly a01 line. Instead of costing $649 like the Xreal One Pro, it’ll cost just $299.

Initially coming to China, with a US launch scheduled for July this new budget option looks set to give my favorite cheap XR specs — the RayNeo Air 4 Pros — a serious run for their money.

A budget XR champion?

First up, Xreal's xbx a01 boasts a 1600-nit HDR10 display. RayNeo’s budget specs debuted the first HDR10 XR specs earlier this year with the Air 4 Pros, and it seriously helps improve the vibrancy of its colors with compatible content. However it only came with 1,200 nits; the extra brightness from Xreal should help further enhance the clarity and beauty of its images.

Secondly, there’s a new anti-shake algorithm built for using during commutes, flights, and bumpy subway rides. Think of it like a reverse version of the stability controls cameras come with — the glasses will try to keep the in-display image from shaking around, while trying to preserve as much of the image clarity as possible.

Thirdly, these glasses are meant to look great. With a range of interchangeable front frames to suit different styles, they also cater to different needs — such as the ability to swap to dimmer lenses in brighter conditions.

Plus they should be pretty comfy too. At only 62g which should make them feel fairly light on your face.

Of course we’ll need to test Xreal’s glasses out to be able to judge them fully, but I’m a major fan of its other specs so I’m optimistic that Xreal’s foray in budget glasses will be a slam dunk.

If I was RayNeo I’d even be a little worried Xreal is coming to eat my lunch — though I’m sure it has some tricks up its sleeves to counter down the line.

This also gives us a fun look at how Xreal’s Android XR efforts might develop. As smart glasses become something we wear all the time, design aspects like interchangeable frame covers could allow us to make fashion conscious decisions (having multiple designs to wear for various scenarios) without breaking the bank on several expensive pairs of smart specs.

We’ll have to wait and see what next, but yet again smart glasses are proving why they’re one of the most exciting sectors in tech right now.

Rumor has it, Apple's pricey Vision Pro is headed for the scrap heap of failed tech gadgets. Rumor also has it that it's fine and will see either further upgrades or iterations. Rumor further has it that even if the Vision Pro doesn't get significant upgrades, it will stand as the progenitor of Apple AR glasses, the wearable everyone will probably want.

By now, you should know that no one knows anything about the future of the woebegone spatial computer except for Apple, which, for the moment, is busy celebrating a significant Vision Pro win: eye surgery completed via a surgeon wearing the headset.

That news is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's a fist-pumping validation of Vision Pro's potential as a life-altering piece of wearable technology for enterprise. On the other hand, consumers may see it as yet another sign that the Vision Pro was never intended for them in the first place.

It's been almost three years now since Apple unveiled Vision Pro at WWDC 2023 and gave a small group of attendees, including me, the chance to try it out. As I wrote back then:

Perhaps it was the moment a virtual butterfly effortlessly landed on my extended finger, or maybe it was the dinosaur's snaggle-toothed maw that came within inches of my face, or even the mountaineer who balanced barefoot on a thin cable pulled taut across a vast ravine. In truth, it was all of those experiences with Apple's stunning Apple Vision Pro spatial computing headset that convinced me I'd just experienced the true future of VR.

To this day, I do not think this was hyperbole. I had never in decades of using technology and even trying VR (going all the way back to the mid 1990s) and AR tech for the last two decades, experienced anything like it.

As most people know, the Vision Pro arrives with a hefty price tag of $3,499. If you held, wore, and experienced the spatial computer, you could understand, if not justify, the price, but between the sometimes uncomfortable nature of wearing the 1-pound device on your face and the instant out-of-reach for average consumer price, the Vision Pro was a hamstrung consumer product from the get-go.

Apple did not win over consumers

Over the last year or so, Apple has done what it could to attract consumers, like integrating more entertainment and experiences, letting people turn any photo into a spatial image, updating the processor to the M5 chip, and radically improving the headstraps to finally make the Vision Pro truly comfortable to wear for hours at a time.

But there has always been a disconnect. Even aside from the price, consumers showed little interest in being cut off from family, friends, and coworkers. Because that's what Vision Pro was asking of you: dive into a 3D movie while your family does something else. Work at a massive virtual desktop while your coworkers sit nearby, staring at you incredulously.

The latest software lets you bring other coworkers into your virtual space, and it's a wild experience, but it requires that they also wear a Vision Pro headset. It's overkill for remote work, where Zoom will probably suffice.

The Ternus factor

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Vision Pro is not the breakout consumer hit Apple imagined. I don't see the headsets in offices, and I do not get questions about them from consumers.

Stories about using them and the eye-popping experiences you can find (like the spatial vision of U2 lead singer Bono's documentary) drive little to no interest.

Apple will still point to the goggles as a point of pride. In a recent discussion with Tom's Guide, John Ternus called them "an extraordinary product."

The vote of confidence is important because Ternus is now just months away from stepping into the Apple CEO role. It sounds like he likes Vision Pro. On the other hand, now is not the time to tear down products championed by Tim Cook, his soon-to-be former boss and predecessor. It would be the height of bad form.

Perhaps it's Ternus's recent appointment that's recharged the rumor mill here, but fresh reports indicate Apple's failure to ignite widespread consumer adoption with the Vision Pro M5 upgrade may have doomed the product. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has claimed in the past that Ternus was not necessarily a fan, but more recently said that he may have killed a lower-cost Vision Pro product project.

Apple has no public statements to support any of this conjecture, but anyone with a brain knows that a product struggling at this level will at least need solid repositioning. The closest Apple has come to admitting that it's not a consumer hit is Tim Cook mentioning Vision Pro's big enterprise potential. I do think the Vision Pro could have a long-term future with the corporate set. On the other hand, Microsoft (HoloLens) and Google (Google Glass) both followed that path only to eventually shelve their wearable AR products.

More certain is that everything Apple and John Ternus learned from Vision Pro about spatial computing will be poured into Apple Glass, iGlass, or whatever Apple calls its lightweight, affordable mixed-reality glasses that draw most of their intelligence from the iPhone in your pocket.

For as much as Ternus may have disliked the Vision Pro project, he will look to the glasses — and maybe the folding iPhone — to be his signature products, the ones people talk about when he steps aside 15 years from now.

No matter what happens to Vision Pro, nothing can diminish the accomplishment. Apple's spatial computer remains the apex product in the category (yes, outdoing the Galaxy XR headset for now) and marked a turning point in wearable hardware. Sure, it's been overshadowed by AI and Apple's failure to deliver a more powerful Siri, but I will encourage you to head over to an Apple Store and put on a Vision Pro headset, just so you can someday tell your grandkids about it.

• Apple’s Vision Pro headset was used in a world-first surgery
• It’s since been used in hundreds of similar operations
• It could help transform operating theaters, one surgeon believes

If you’re due for surgery, the next time you go under the knife, your operation could be performed by a surgeon using an Apple Vision Pro headset. That’s because the world’s first successful procedure to remove optical cataracts has been completed with the assistance of one of Apple’s headsets — and it’s gone on to help in scores of other medical operations in the past year alone.

The surgery actually first took place in October 2025, but the surgeon in question — Dr. Eric Rosenberg, DO, MSE — has since performed “hundreds” of subsequent procedures, according to a press release.

It all happened at the SightMD practice in New England, which is owned by Dr. Rosenberg. Using a Vision Pro app called ScopeXR (also developed by Dr. Rosenberg), the surgeons were able to visualize the operation “in immersive stereoscopic 3D while simultaneously accessing real-time surgical overlays and comprehensive preoperative diagnostic data, all without breaking sterile technique".

Dr. Rosenberg had plenty of praise for the Vision Pro: “This isn’t just about a new device, it’s about reimagining what the operating room of the future looks like.” Speaking of ScopeXR, he said: “We’ve created a platform that makes surgeons safer, smarter, and more connected.”

Fulfilling the Vision Pro’s potential

One way that ScopeXR was able to tap into the Vision Pro was by enabling collaboration between surgeons and consultants, even if they weren’t all in the same room together. Assistants and mentors could remotely join the feed provided by the Vision Pro and communicate in real time.

As Dr. Rosenberg put it, “We are now able to bring the world’s best surgeon into any operating room, at any hour, from anywhere on the planet.” That has a range of uses, from training surgeons to providing help with unexpected complications.

Apple’s Vision Pro is often held up as an expensive flop, with its future existence frequently called into question, and it’s true that the device seems to have struggled to gain traction in the consumer world. But flip over to the other side of the coin and it appears that the product is doing well in industrial, medical and similar environments.

Perhaps that’s where the Vision Pro is best placed to fulfill its potential. Apple is said to be working on lightweight smart glasses, and those would probably be a more consumer-friendly device. But for more demanding users like operating theaters around the world, the Vision Pro’s incredibly high-end specs could be just what’s needed.

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2): two-minute review

Between the boom in generative AI technology and the ability of manufacturers to produce smaller-than-ever hardware components, accessories as light as glasses frames can house impressive computing power these days, and leading that particular charge has been Meta, with its stylish and capable Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, made in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica (the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley), set the current standard for the many lesser-known brands competing for space in the burgeoning market.

That being said, the competition may well catch up before long — the changes between the first- and second-gen glasses are only iterative, and Meta’s focus is more than likely on the Meta Ray-Ban Displays rather than on these comparatively ‘dumb’ smart glasses.

So, what better way to test them than by taking them on the road? I took my pair of second-gen Ray-Ban Metas on vacation to Rome, Italy and used them as both my main camera and my tour guide to find out how useful they are in real-life environments.

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) review: price and availability

• Starts at $379 / £379 / AU$689

The Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) start at $379 / £379 / AU$599 in all their various styles — that’s $80 / £80 / AU$150 more than the first-generation glasses. That’s a relatively small price increase (especially given current market conditions) for a decent upgrade to battery life and camera specs — and you can easily swap out your existing lenses into the Gen 2 if you already own the first generation and really want those benefits.

You'll also pay $30 / £30 / AU$40 or $80 / £80 / AU$90 extra for Polarized or Transitions lenses, respectively. I went for standard shaded lenses, and I wished for transitions countless times during my testing; they’re a must-have if you plan to use these indoors at any point without looking like you’re nursing a hangover.

While these are still surprisingly affordable, the price is beginning to creep up towards “wait, do I really need these?” territory; in a world where we can now purchase a $599 / £599 / AU$899 MacBook Neo, the ‘cool’ factor can only go so far to inspire new customers to invest in an otherwise niche category.

All frame designs are priced the same, and you can choose from six color options across the Wayfarer and Headliner frames, or seven in Skyler. Plus, two new designs have also recently been released for prescription wearers: Blayzer and Scriber. There are two model sizes too, although exclusively for the Wayfarer style; one for larger and one for smaller heads. Certain frames also offer the option of a low nose-bridge model.

• Value: 4/5

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) review: design

• Broadly the same as first-gen glasses
• Slightly heavier
• Still IPX4 splash-resistant

Little has changed outwardlythat the eye can see between the first and second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The case is the same, they’re available in the same styles with the same lenses (Prescription (-6.0 to +4.0), Transition and Polarized) – in fact, all that’s noticeably changed here is the weight, which goes up 2.8g, from the 49.2g of the first-generation to 52g, likely on account of the larger battery and improved camera hardware.

There’s some disappointment in this sameness. For example, these still only have an IPX4 rating, so they’re splash-resistant but not splash-proof — and something that’s worn on your head, which is the first place to get wet in a sudden downpour, should have the best possible protection here.

I don’t love how the Wayfarers look on me, which did kind of ruin my holiday shots. I went for the Wayfarers as they’re a more unisex design, and I could share them around with my colleagues, but the boxy shape and thick frames make me look like Carl Fredricksen from Up. Broadly speaking, I think at least one of the three styles will suit most people (I’m more of a Skylar girl, myself), but even Meta can’t entirely escape the fact that these glasses need to be decently boxy in order to squeeze in all that tech.

The fit is still super-comfortable, though, and that 2.8g weight increase hasn’t made the glasses unwearable — though first-timers may find them a little heavy on the nose bridge. On the upper-left corner when you’re wearing the glasses / looking at the glasses from the front, as on the first-gen, is the 12MP camera lens, and on the upper-right is the indicator light that lets passers-by know you’re filming or taking a photo. The placement here bothers me — most smart glasses clearly weren’t made with women in mind, because if you have bangs as I do, you’ll find a great many shots get interrupted by your hair.

Also as on the first-gen specs, the shutter button is on the top of the right arm, and the invisible touchpad is on the outer side of the arm, which lets you control things like music and Meta AI. On the left arm is the power switch.

From afar, these features are discreet enough to be almost invisible, and that continues right the way through to the embedded mics and speakers. In fact, the only way you can tell these are smart glasses at all is from the camera lens and the light — I’ll let you decide whether that’s a good thing, or a menace to society.

• Design: 5/5

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) review: Performance

• AI is broadly reliable
• 12MP camera is still limiting, but decent
• Battery boost is much appreciated

I took the Ray-Ban Meta (2nd generation) smart glasses on vacation with me to Rome, Italy, hoping the beautiful and historic city would offer lots of opportunities for that neat little 12MP camera to capture some great first-person perspectives as I explored the landmarks.

I didn’t necessarily want to like the process — I’m deeply concerned by the privacy implications of guerrilla video and photo capture — but I can’t think of a better way to really capture a moment than to record pretty much the exact perspective you had when you experienced it. Plus, with news in late 2025 about new targeted ads using Meta AI conversations and alarming reports about footage captured on the glasses, including intimate moments, being viewed by contractors, the privacy-conscious may well want to keep all Meta products at arm’s length.

That aside, the quality of photos and videos captured by the Ray-Ban Meta (2nd generation) will naturally pale in comparison to the main camera on any flagship smartphone from the past few years. It’s only a 12MP camera, after all. Still, I think there’s something quite rustic and charming about the photos and videos taken by the Ray-Ban Meta, especially if you work around its limitations.

You’re limited to vertical shots, and framing your shots is tough, given there’s no display or preview. Shooting at night will garner middling results, and colors can also often be a little diluted, but broadly speaking the results are great for capturing the moment.

You’ll need to put some thought into what video settings suit the action, too: 1080p at 30fps is a little better stabilized, but naturally less detailed and well-balanced, than 3K HDR videos. You can see examples of this in our Ray-Ban Meta (gen 2) video review.

The most noteworthy upgrade for me is to the battery. With double the on-device battery and a solid 16-hour boost to the case charge compared to the first-gen, these can comfortably last you through a whole weekend away, or you could get by with a few quick charges if you’re travelling for a week or two. That’s a huge win while only adding a few grams to the weight.

Inside the glasses’ arms are two open-ear speakers, through which you can hear Meta AI’s responses and music; these are louder, bassier, and have less sound leakage compared to the first model, according to Meta. I’d say that all tracks — the quality here is pretty great, though there’s still a good amount of leakage. I still wouldn’t personally wear these while sitting next to a stranger and listening to tunes full blast, but if you’re lying on a beach or on a walk, they’ll work a treat.

Speaking of Meta AI, the assistant is pretty handy to have around, and has seen some improvements since we reviewed those original specs back in 2024. Broadly, the AI suite works as expected, including newer features; I tried using Live Translation to quickly unpack what someone was saying, and while it’s not super-accurate or snappy, it gets you by when you’re abroad and you’ve been neglecting your Duolingo sessions.

When I visited the Colosseum, Meta AI served as my stand-in tour guide, telling me about the different landmarks I was looking at, and chatting up a storm about Ancient Rome. However, I did experience some hallucination; I asked if the massive structure had ever been used for anything beyond entertainment, and Meta AI told me all about its past as a housing complex.

I pressed for more information – including when this happened, and all of a sudden it said that had never been the case. Such issues were infrequent, but it does show why you should generally take AI-generated information with a pinch of salt.

The worst part of the AI suite is, unfortunately, the app you have to use to pair your Ray-Ban Meta. The Meta AI app is brimming with AI slop, and I hate that there’s no one-touch button to get straight to your media if you’re a Ray-Ban user. Every time I accidentally open the Vibes feed, I shudder.

• Performance: 4/5

Should I buy the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2)?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

How I tested the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) review

I used the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) for a month, including during a trip to Rome, Italy, wearing them on any day where it was bright enough to use sunglasses. I filmed and shot photos indoors and outdoors, day and night to see how well the 12MP camera could capture the action.

I made sure to try all of their AI features, testing their battery and performance over longer periods to assess comfort, usability and battery life.

I ran the Meta AI app from my iPhone 15 Pro.

• First reviewed: April 2026