Meta pushes wearables forward despite 'pervert glasses' backlash

Meta used its Connect 2026 keynote to introduce a camera-free version of its Ray-Ban smart glasses. The $349 Ray-Ban Meta Audio goes on sale October 13, even as the camera-equipped models keep selling under the 'pervert glasses' nickname that has followed them all year.

The New York Times argues that consumer complaints about covert recording will not slow the broader industry's push into face-worn hardware. 'Meta's smart glasses are the latest in a line of products to raise eyebrows over privacy,' the column notes, adding that other companies are not being stopped from creating similar devices.

Sales, for now, are the counterweight. On Meta's July earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg called the glasses 'a bigger hit sooner than we expected' and said demand was 'still outpacing our ability to build them.'

The Audio version weighs 43 grams, offers 12-hour battery life, and ships in 23 color and lens combinations across Clubmaster and Burbank styles. It plays music, takes calls, translates speech and talks to Meta's AI assistant, but it 'cannot take a single photo or record a second of video.' Two researchers we track were passing the column around the same day it ran.