The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have quietly sold millions of units. They’re not a niche experiment anymore, they’re a real product category that people actually wear every day. And right now, everything’s changing at once.
Price:: $364.99
Where to Buy: Amazon
Gen 2 hardware that fixes the biggest complaint, a brand new model with a screen in the lens, and an all-time-low price on Amazon. Here’s what’s actually different now.
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1. The battery went from “dead by lunch” to all-day
The original Ray-Ban Meta glasses gave you about four hours on a full charge, which meant they’d tap out somewhere around lunch if you put them on in the morning. Gen 2 nearly doubles that to up to eight hours of typical use. That’s a full day at a music festival, a long hike, or a regular Tuesday where you don’t want to think about charging your face.
The case is smarter now. A 20-minute top-up gets you to 50%, and the case itself holds an additional 48 hours of juice. Pack for a weekend, leave the cable at home.
2. They shoot 3K video now (from sunglasses, somehow)
Gen 2 captures 3K Ultra HD video at up to 60 frames per second with ultrawide HDR. That’s more than double the pixel count of the first generation. For a pair of glasses that look like regular Wayfarers, that’s a strange sentence to type.
The 12MP ultra-wide camera handles photos, and a capture LED lights up whenever you’re recording. So no, you can’t secretly film people. That question comes up a lot. Meta also confirmed that hyperlapse and slow motion modes are coming to all AI glasses through a software update later this year.
3. There’s an AI living on your face
The built-in Meta AI assistant got noticeably better with Gen 2. You can ask it questions completely hands-free, get real-time translations across six languages (German and Portuguese were recently added), and use a new conversation focus feature that amplifies whoever you’re talking to in noisy environments. Think of it as a directional microphone for your ears, powered by the glasses’ open-ear speakers.
4. None of it requires a subscription
This has been one of the most persistent questions online, so here it is: no, you don’t pay monthly for anything. The AI, the camera, the translations, the open-ear audio for music and calls, it all works right out of the box. There’s no premium tier. There’s no unlock fee. You buy the glasses and everything’s included.
5. A brand new model has an actual screen in the lens
Meta Ray-Ban Display launched at Connect 2025 for $799, and it’s not glasses with better specs. It’s a different product entirely.
The in-lens display is monocular, sitting off to the side so it doesn’t block your view. It packs 42 pixels per degree of field of view, which Meta says is the highest for any commercially available waveguide glasses. It handles message previews, walking navigation, photo previews, live captions, and visual responses from Meta AI. The whole setup weighs 69 grams and comes with Transitions lenses that adjust automatically. Battery runs up to six hours, with the collapsible case extending that to 30 hours.
Meta Ray-Ban Display is available at select Best Buy, LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, and Ray-Ban stores in the US. Two colors (Black and Sand), two frame sizes. Demand has been high enough that in-store demos are booked out weeks in advance.
6. You control the display with a muscle-reading wristband
The $799 price tag includes something called the Meta Neural Band: an EMG wristband that reads electrical signals from your muscles so you can control the display with subtle hand gestures. Scroll by swiping your thumb. Click by pinching your fingers. Rotate your wrist to adjust volume like you’re turning a dial.
The Neural Band gets 18 hours of battery on its own, carries an IPX7 water rating, and the electrodes are coated with diamond-like carbon reinforced with Vectran. That’s the same woven mesh used on the Mars Rover’s crash pads. You don’t see that on a spec sheet every day.
7. The live demo flopped on stage (and it doesn’t matter)
When Meta first showed off the Display model at Connect 2025, the live demo stumbled. A race condition bug collided with server overload from thousands of audience devices connecting at once. Sounds terrible in a headline, means almost nothing in practice. The hardware works. The demo conditions were a worst-case scenario, and Meta acknowledged the issue immediately.
8. The price crashed to an all-time low on Amazon
If the Display model feels like a deep dive, the standard Gen 2 glasses are where most people will land. And the timing is interesting. The Gen 2 Wayfarer hit its lowest price ever on Amazon this week.
That’s notable because interest in these glasses isn’t slowing down. EssilorLuxottica reported over 7 million units sold in 2025 alone, tripling what shipped in the two years before that combined. When demand grows that fast and prices start falling at the same time, something’s about to shift.
Price:: $364.99
Where to Buy: Amazon
Meta’s AI glasses now come in three tiers: camera glasses starting at $379, display glasses at $799, and full AR with the Orion prototype (no consumer date yet). For most people curious about smart glasses, the Gen 2 at its current sale price is the way in. If you want to see where face-worn computing is headed, the Display is the one to watch.
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