Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled Meta’s highly-anticipated Ray-Ban Display glasses – the company’s first smart glasses with a built-in display.
The specs – which retail for $799 – have a small digital display on the lens. Customers can control the display by making certain hand gestures while wearing a special wristband called the Meta Neural Band, which acts as an EMG device, meaning it tracks electrical signals from the body.
They are Meta’s most innovative glasses available to the public yet, tying in elements from its previous audio-only Ray-Ban Meta glasses and its Orion augmented reality glasses, which are expensive to make and not yet available to consumers.
“These are glasses with the classic style that you’d expect from Ray-Ban, but they’re the first AI glasses with a high resolution display and a whole new way to interact with them – a Meta Neural Band,” Zuckerberg said.
Customers can use the new glasses – which go on sale in the US on Sept. 30 – to watch videos through the display or see and respond to text messages, he added. The glasses can also display live subtitles and translations when speaking to another person.
The display pops up in one frame and is slightly off-center, so it doesn’t block a person’s view, and will disappear when it’s not in use, Zuckerberg said.
But a few hiccups popped up during the demo portion of the product unveiling, when Zuckerberg repeatedly tried to call Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, to no avail.
“This is uh – you know, it happens,” Zuckerberg stammered.
The new Ray-Ban Displays will be available in black or sand colors.
Meta has been developing its smart glasses with Franco-Italian eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica since 2019. It renewed its partnership with the company last year.
Zuckerberg also revealed the Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses, which are designed for to snap photos and videos for athletes in high-intensity sports like snowboarding and mountain biking.
The new Oakley Meta frames have a button on the underside of its frames to make taking photos easier, higher-quality 3K video capabilities, a longer nine-hour battery life and louder speakers.
The glasses can connect with Garmit fitness watches to track health statistics like heart rate.
They will retail for $499 when they go on sale on Oct. 21.
Meta also debuted the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), which has double the battery life of the previous model and a more powerful camera that can capture 3K Ultra HD video.
The Gen 2 went on sale starting Wednesday for $379 – up from the earlier model’s $299 price tag.
Zuckerberg also announced Meta’s Horizon TV, an entertainment hub with TV shows, sporting events and movies for owners of the company’s Quest VR headsets. Disney and Universal Pictures will be contributing content for Horizon TV, he said.
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