At this year’s Meta Connect, the company made clear that smart glasses are a major focus of its hardware strategy. Throughout the event — where Meta presents its latest devices and AI work — glasses were prominent: Meta employees and influencers alike were often wearing them, and many demos involved the devices.
I tried on several of Meta’s advanced glasses. One notable preview was of Meta’s unreleased audio-only smart glasses. The new design responds to earlier privacy concerns about camera-equipped eyewear by omitting a camera and providing no native way to record the surroundings. The glasses are fitted with six microphones, and in my experience felt much lighter and more comfortable than other smart glasses I have tested.
A Meta staffer emphasized the entertainment and communication use cases: the glasses are suitable for listening to music (and can be more comfortable than earbuds) and for taking phone calls without pulling out a phone. They will also integrate with Muse, Meta’s personal agentic system, allowing the wearer to give verbal commands to Muse. This integration isn’t yet publicly available. Meta plans to let users personalize the agent with a selection of digital avatars that represent the assistant during interactions.
I got to test the Muse interaction. The experience was fun but occasionally awkward: the agent needs clear, direct commands and becomes confused if you’re speaking to another person at the same time. While I was intermittently talking with the Meta staffer who gave me the glasses, Muse repeatedly assumed I was addressing it and would speak over her. Still, in appropriate contexts the integration could be quite useful: wearers could ask Muse to manage digital tasks — send emails, read to-do lists, or answer questions — while shopping or doing other activities. In one demo the glasses provided a concise, historically accurate answer to my question about World War II.
I also tried a second audio-only pair designed for people with hearing impairment. Hearing loss affects many families — roughly 50 million Americans are estimated to have some degree of hearing loss — and this device addresses a clear practical need. A member of Meta’s research team told me the glasses had been in development for about five years and highlighted a potential price advantage: while many hearing aids can cost up to $1,600, Meta plans to price these glasses at $150.
To simulate hearing loss, Meta asked me to insert earplugs before trying the device. With the glasses on, the other person’s voice was amplified. The glasses offer selectable modes: a focused mode that concentrates on the person in front of the wearer, and an omnidirectional mode that picks up sounds from all around.
Mark Zuckerberg has stated that he believes smart glasses represent the future, and Meta’s activity at Connect showed the company pursuing that vision aggressively. Yet smart glasses still occupy a niche that has not found broad mainstream adoption. At Connect, Meta appeared to cast a wide net in an effort to succeed where others have struggled — aiming to make its glasses stylish, functional, and genuinely useful. Whether the wider public will adopt them remains to be seen; attendees at Connect were optimistic, but broader acceptance will take time.
