Meta launches first AI smart glasses with integrated display

Technology company Meta has added to its Ray-Ban smart glasses series with the Meta Ray-Ban Display – its first pair to combine AI and augmented reality.

Meta's latest glasses feature a heads-up display that overlays information such as messages, captions and video calls over the view from one eye.

The glasses ship with a smart wristband that enables voice-free control through subtle hand movements – a unique innovation that the Facebook parent company previewed with a paper in Nature just months ago.

Photo of a woman wearing the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and Neural Band wristband — The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses come with a Neural Band wristband

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the glasses in a keynote presentation at the company's Connect conference on Wednesday.

In it, he pitched the Meta Ray-Ban Display as a revolutionary device that would free people from the distractions of their smartphones while enhancing their natural capabilities.

"Our goal is to build great-looking glasses that deliver personal superintelligence and a feeling of presence using realistic holograms," said Zuckerberg.

Photo of a man tending to his tomato patch while wearing the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and wristband — The glasses continue Meta's collaboration with Ray-Ban

Personal superintelligence is a phrase coined by Meta to describe the use of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) by individuals, tailored to their personal lives and goals.

"Glasses are the ideal form factor for personal superintelligence because they let you stay present in the moment while getting access to all of these AI capabilities that make you smarter, help you communicate better, improve your memory, improve your senses and more," continued Zuckerberg.

"Glasses are the only form factor where you can let an AI see what you see, hear what you hear, talk to you throughout the day, and very soon generate whater UI you need, right in your vision in real time."

Image of an augmented-reality display over a view of a tomato plant showing a recipe for cherry tomato summer salad — The augmented-reality display shows information overlaid on the wearer's view

The display on the glasses is designed to be big enough to see without blocking the user's vision, and to be bright and crisp enough to read even outdoors in the sun.

It is invisible to anyone but the wearer and disappears when not in use.

For controls, the glasses continue to offer voice control and the touch panel on the arm like the previous Meta Ray-Ban models but add what Meta is calling the Neural Band.

Image of the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and wristband in close-up — Meta has introduced a wristband for voice-free control through subtle gestures

This wraps around the wrist and reads the minute muscle movements of subtle hand gestures, such as tapping the thumb in different spots as if operating a virtual D-pad, twisting a virtual knob to turn up the volume on music or handwriting letters to spell out a text message.

Meta is describing the wristband as the world's first mainstream neural interface, because it works by reading the electrical activity of the nervous system, even if it doesn't require the type of invasive implant usually associated with this technology.

This also means that the wristband can be used by people with limited arm mobility.

The wristband is made from high-performance textiles with carbon-coated electrodes reinforced by a strong and flexible woven mesh made from Vectran, a liquid crystal polymer fibre.

The plastic glasses have Ray-Ban's iconic Wayfarer silhouette, just slightly scaled up and more square, and incorporate transition lenses so as to become sunglasses when outdoors.

Among other functions, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses can take photos and videos, preview these recordings to the user, provide live translations and real-time subtitles, give context-aware assistance such as directions and reminders.

Close-up image of the Meta Neural Band showing electrodes covered in a mesh — Electrodes on the wristband read electrical signals from the muscles

Zuckerberg demonstrated several of these uses on stage on Wednesday, although there were some glitches, which he attributed to the Wi-Fi at the venue.

The Meta founder also discussed the uptake of its smart glasses, which the company has been working on for more than 10 years – nearly as long as Google's Google Glass prototype has been consigned to the dustbin.

Zuckerberg said that Meta's data showed that AI glasses were "taking off" and that their sales trajectory was looking similar to some of the most popular electronics of all time.

Composite image showing talking and a live caption overlaid on the top — The glasses are capable of live captioning, among many other functions

Meta representatives have previously told Dezeen that they believe that everyone who has glasses is going to upgrade to smart glasses over the next decade.

When its Neural Band was previewed in July, the company suggested that it could become our primary way of interacting with computers, overtaking the keyboard, mouse and touchscreen.

Meta also launched two other smart glasses models at its Connect conference – an upgrade to its display-free Meta Ray-Ban glasses and the new Meta Oakley Vanguard for high-intensity sports.

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