At Meta Join 2025, the corporate’s largest occasion of the 12 months, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled three new good glasses: the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta, the Meta Ray-Ban Show and wristband controller, and the Oakley Meta Vanguard.

Meta says it has bought two million of the first-generation Ray-Ban Meta good glasses, and earlier this 12 months, Meta unveiled its newest AI-powered good glasses with Oakley, which had been designed for athletes. Silicon Valley is leaning closely into AI wearables, and Meta appears to be one of many firms main the cost.

With Meta seeking to regain its footing within the AI race and promote extra {hardware}, the corporate had so much at stake throughout Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Join 2025 keynote. Total, Meta showcased some fairly spectacular know-how — the Meta Neural Band, the wristband controller that comes with the Meta Ray-Ban Show, is a selected spotlight.

And but, in a twist that felt harking back to HBO’s Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg’s demo of the AI capabilities on the Ray-Ban Metas failed. Whoops!

Whereas sharing a dwell video feed of the cooking content material creator Jack Mancuso at Meta HQ, Zuckerberg requested the chef to reveal how his Ray-Ban Meta glasses may assist him whip up a Korean-inspired steak sauce.

“I like the set-up you might have right here, with soy sauce and different elements. How can I assist?” requested the chipper Meta AI voice.

Mancuso requested for a recipe for a Korean-inspired steak sauce, and the AI voice started to checklist the elements that he would want — however Mancuso is aware of he must hold the demo succinct, so he interrupts and asks, “What do I do first?”

After a second of silence that dragged a bit too lengthy, Mancuso repeated, “What do I do first?”

“You’ve already mixed the bottom elements, so now grate a pear so as to add to the sauce,” the AI mentioned. However he had not but mixed the bottom elements, as a result of he had not began making the recipe, therefore the query of what to do first.

Mancuso requested the identical query once more, and the AI gave the identical response. The viewers laughed.

“I feel the Wi-Fi may be tousled — again to you Mark!” Mancuso mentioned.

“You understand what? It’s all good. The irony of the entire thing is that you simply spend years making the know-how, after which the Wi-Fi of the day form of… catches you,” Zuckerberg mentioned. “Anyway, we’ll go try what he made later.”

The entire interplay was a bit awkward, particularly for the reason that difficulty didn’t appear to be with the Wi-Fi. However even when issues are going in response to plan, these displays can really feel a bit hokey… like the top of the keynote, when Zuckerberg and Diplo fairly actually bumped into the sundown collectively, carrying their Meta Oakley Vanguards. It needed to be a busy day for Mark, so possibly he simply wanted an excuse to construct some cardio into his schedule.

Meta unveiled the second technology of its Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which first debuted in 2023. This spruced-up mannequin options double the battery lifetime of its predecessor, now lasting as much as eight hours of blended use on one cost. The second-generation glasses additionally assist extremely HD 3K video recording, which the corporate says is twice as sharp because the final mannequin.

Meta’s good glasses are additionally getting some new options with the discharge of the second-generation Ray-Ban Metas, like dialog focus, which will likely be accessible on the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN glasses.

“For those who’re consuming at a scorching new restaurant, commuting on the practice, or catching your favourite DJ’s newest set, dialog focus makes use of your AI glasses’ open-ear audio system to amplify the voice of the individual you’re speaking to,” Meta mentioned in its press launch.

Dialog focus isn’t out simply but, so we are able to’t say for certain if it’ll be any assist to your subsequent evening out.

The Stay AI function — which Meta didn’t correctly demo on stage — can also be on its approach. But it surely’s so energy-intensive you can solely use it for about an hour or two.

“As we make battery and power effectivity optimizations, Meta AI will transition from one thing you immediate with a wake phrase to an always-available assistant,” the corporate mentioned.

The second-generation Ray-Ban Meta are priced at $379.

The Meta Ray-Ban Show smartglasses are essentially the most spectacular glasses that Meta has unveiled to this point, that includes a built-in show for apps, alerts, and instructions on the proper lens. However what units this pair of good glasses aside is its accompanying wristband controller, the Meta Neural Band.

This wristband lets Meta showcase a little bit of what it’s been spending a lot time (and cash) on in its Actuality Labs division, which is infamous for dropping billions of {dollars} 1 / 4.

Visually, the Meta Neural Band seems to be like a Fitbit with no display screen. It’s powered by floor electromyography (sEMG), which may decide up on minute hand gestures and small actions. That is way more refined than a wrist gesture on an Apple Watch. Customers can write out textual content messages by holding their fingers collectively as in the event that they had been gripping a pen and “writing” out the textual content. This implies you can see a WhatsApp message are available in your proper glasses lens, then reply it by “writing” your response.

For now, the glasses assist Meta apps, however the firm must assist all kinds of apps sooner or later to get the form of adoption they’re in search of. Like Apple and Google, Meta is betting that good glasses may minimize into the market share of the smartphone sooner or later — however it will likely be an enormous problem to pressure such an enormous cultural shift.

The Meta Ray-Ban Show, which comes with the Meta Neural Band, will value $799 and launch on September 30.

For the bearish amongst us, it appears exhausting to think about carrying good glasses and sending textual content messages by handwriting within the air. However the Oakley Meta Vanguard good glasses, that are designed for athletes, provide essentially the most coherent use case but for this type of know-how.

Bikers, path runners, and skiiers can {photograph} their adventures with out pulling out their telephones; the glasses’ open-air audio system can play music throughout your exercise, and even hyperlink with apps like Strava and Garmin to relay your stats. Like the opposite new glasses, the Vanguard mannequin can also be AI-enabled.

Not like different fashions of Meta good glasses, the Oakley Meta Vanguards have only one unified entrance lens with a digicam within the center, somewhat than two lenses with cameras on both aspect — it’s a design that makes extra technical sense, and it’s a vogue assertion you can pull off in athletic eyewear, however not in eyeglasses (show me incorrect). The brand new glasses can seize video in as much as 3K decision and have a 12-megapixel digicam with a 122-degree wide-angle lens.

The glasses have an IP67 mud and water resistance ranking to be used throughout intense exercises. Meta says the wraparound design of the glasses options Oakley PRIZMTM Lens know-how, which is designed to dam out solar, wind, and dirt.

Except you’re an ultramarathon runner, these glasses will simply final all through your exercise. The glasses can keep on for 9 hours, or six hours with steady music playback. However the charging case that the glasses include can present a further 36 hours of cost on the go. Meta claims that the charging case can rapidly get the glasses to a 50% cost in 20 minutes.

The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses retail for $499 and go on sale on October 21.

On the VR entrance, Meta didn’t launch any new Quest headsets as a part of this 12 months’s Join. Regardless that the convention and firm are named after the Metaverse, we realized about only a small variety of updates to its VR, akin to Hyperscape, which can enable builders and creators to construct photorealistic areas in digital actuality.

Meta is reportedly growing an ultralight VR headset for launch by the top of 2026, so possibly we’ll see that come to fruition on the subsequent Meta Join occasion.