Meta Launches Camera-Free AI Glasses at $349 to Shed 'Pervert Glasses' Image

Meta has launched its first camera-free AI glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta Audio, at $349, confirming earlier reports at its Connect 2026 conference on Wednesday. The audio-only design is a direct response to the reputational damage Meta suffered after critics dubbed its camera-equipped glasses "pervert glasses" over covert recording concerns.

The new device plays music and podcasts, takes calls, translates speech, and connects to Meta's AI assistant, Muse. EssilorLuxottica, Meta's partner in its AI hardware efforts, designed the glasses.

Meta already sells a range of AI glasses in various styles, colors, and capabilities. But the audio-only version addresses a persistent problem: people, often men, used the glasses to record videos without subjects' consent. Meta tried to mitigate the issue with an update that disables the camera if the recording-indicator LED is tampered with. The creepiness factor remained.

The new device could prove more popular for that reason. It also gives Meta an answer to Apple's Siri-powered AirPods.

"Once you get used to high quality audio, it's just a thing that you want all the time, right?" Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during Wednesday's keynote. He added that after working on the idea, the company realized it could design a whole new category of glasses around audio.

Without cameras to house, the glasses are slimmer than Meta's other models and weigh only 43 grams. Meta claims 12 hours of battery life on a single charge, extending to 48 hours with the included charging case. The design includes adjustable temple tips, swappable nose pads, and overextension hinges.

Buyers can choose from 23 color and lens combinations across two new styles: a retro-inspired "Clubmaster" Ray-Ban shape and the "Burbank," which Meta describes as a "classic, timeless, rectangle shape." As with other Meta glasses, customers can order them with their optical prescription. Preorders open October 13.

Camera glasses get a refresh too

Alongside the audio model, Meta announced its next-generation camera glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3). The lineup adds two styles to the Wayfarer — the Aviator and the Zena, the latter a cat-eye frame shape. The Gen 3 glasses carry a 12 MP camera supporting 3K Ultra HD video, a six-mic array, and up to nine hours of battery life.

The EssilorLuxottica partnership will expand with more styles and colors, plus a new brand partnership with singer Lisa, following Meta's earlier deal with Kylie Jenner. Meta said the glasses will roll out to more countries globally.

All of Meta's AI glasses will feature access to Muse, the company's newer personal AI assistant.

Meta also teased coming updates: Dolby Atmos Capture, a feature that picks the best photo from multiple frames, landscape and portrait mode options, hearing enhancements for people with hearing loss, more detailed AI responses, different audio modes, customizable controls, and something called "private processing" — which Meta claims will prevent the company from seeing users' data.

With a $349 entry price and a design stripped of the component that triggered its worst publicity, Meta is betting audio alone can carry a product category — and that privacy reassurance will sell as well as cameras did.