Meta offers lower cost glasses as wearables competition heats up

SAN FRANCISCO: Meta on Tuesday launched a new line of smart glasses priced slightly lower than its Ray-Ban-branded glasses, as competition heats up in the AI-powered wearable tech space.

The glasses are being made in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, but won’t carry that company’s Ray-Ban or Oakley branding, unlike previous releases.

The new glasses will start at US$299, slightly less than its Ray-Ban smart glasses, which start at US$379.

Meta smart glasses allow you to shoot photos and videos, listen to music, take phone calls and interact with an integrated AI assistant including for live translation.

Meta also sells two Oakley-branded pairs that start at US$399, while its top-of-the-line Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are priced at around US$800.

“We just feel like we need to have a pair of glasses at a lower price point, and we were trying to figure out what could work there,” Meta’s vice president of wearables, Alex Himel, told The Verge.

The glasses will offer an array of photo, video and other AI features powered by Meta’s own AI models, and will support live translation in 14 new languages.

While Meta currently dominates the market for smart glasses, other companies are trying to catch up.

Earlier this month, Snap, the maker of social media app Snapchat, announced its own new generation of smart glasses, called Specs, which will provide an augmented reality experience beyond what Meta offers.

People will be able to use Snap’s Specs without pairing them with a smartphone, and the glasses will project digital objects onto the surrounding environment.

Specs will launch later this year for US$2,195 – many times more expensive than anything Meta offers.

Apple is also reportedly gearing up to launch its own smart glasses in 2027. The iPhone maker previously launched a mixed-reality headset called Vision Pro for US$3,499, but sales have been lacklustre.