Meta’s Audio-Only Glasses Are Nicely Made. They Don’t Solve the Deeper Problems
I’ve started feeling self-conscious when I wear camera-equipped smart glasses out and about. It’s not hard to imagine why. Public opinion of smart glasses seems lower than it’s ever, driven by a combination of AI fatigue, privacy concerns and a general lack of awareness of what smart glasses can do or why anyone would want to wear them. Some places are also starting to ban them.
Meta’s addressed one concern, at least, with its new camera-free line of Ray-Ban smart glasses. Getting rid of the camera completely on the Meta Ray-Ban Audio means they’re smaller and lighter, and have better battery life, too. But they’re not as cheap as I’d have expected. The two models that are available starting this week, the Clubmaster and Burbank, run from $349 to $429 — just for the frames, depending on whether they have transitions lenses or not. Meta has more affordable self-branded smart glasses staring at $249, but those have cameras onboard.
I’m not sure why Meta didn’t make self-branded, camera-free glasses, too, which could have helped bring the cost down. I’m sure those are coming in the future, but in the meantime, skipping the camera seems to be more about design, privacy and extending audio battery life.
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Are they a worthwhile addition to Meta’s lineup? Here’s what I think of them so far.
Wearing them: Lighter, for sure
I’ve been wearing a pair of the Clubmaster glasses, but without my prescription. That means perching them over my regular glasses or wearing them around the house without being able to see much. After all, the main thing that’s “new” here is the lack of a camera.
These glasses are definitely lighter and easier to wear, and the arms are a little smaller. They weigh between 43 and 47 grams, compared with a little over 50 grams for other Meta Ray-Bans. The front of the frames is a lot smaller on the Clubmaster model, but the half-metal design isn’t exactly my style.
Meta says battery life for constant audio playback is around six hours, a couple of hours more than the four I get from my Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 and Scriber Optics glasses. For general wear, Meta gives the fuzzier estimate of “up to 12 hours,” versus eight hours for the others, which is harder to map out. Not using the glasses’ audio obviously makes the battery last longer.
The glasses work the same as other Meta smart glasses, with a touchpad on the right arm for tapping to start or stop playback and swiping to control the volume. I still activate it accidentally too often. A button on top activates Meta AI or can be set to launch music.
What you can do with them
Now, what would I use these for? I already find the audio quality on Meta’s latest glasses surprisingly good, and the microphones are excellent for phone calls. The audio seems a bit louder on the Clubmaster model, although the overall quality is similar. It’s still prone to being washed out in noisy areas because of the open design, which angles the speaker audio from the temples.
Obviously, I’m not taking any photos with these. That also means the glasses can’t perform any visually aware AI tricks or provide visual assistance.
Beyond music, phone calls and anything else you’d use headphones for, Meta AI is the necessary conduit for everything these glasses can do. They still need to be paired with the Meta AI phone app, too.
Meta’s FDA-cleared hearing enhancement mode, which lets the glasses function as a type of hearing aid for mild hearing loss, costs an extra $149 or comes with a Meta One subscription. I tried the technology as best I could at Meta’s developer conference last month, but I still don’t know how well it’ll compare with hearing assistance options such as Apple’s AirPods Pro. The audio glasses should, however, support hearing enhancement for longer on a single charge.
Why now?
Meta was clearly working on camera-free glasses before this year’s wave of backlash against its camera-enabled eyewear, though concerns about wearing camera-equipped glasses in public have been bubbling for a while.
But I also wonder what these particular models mean for Meta — and for its eyewear partner, EssilorLuxottica. The company has tons of eyewear stores worldwide and already makes a pair of assistance-focused audio glasses called Nuance.
The fact that these glasses are Ray-Ban branded rather than Meta branded lingers in my mind. I think they’re part of Essilor’s expanding range of more acceptable smart eyewear and likely aimed at customers who only want audio assistance.
But they feel a bit removed from the rest of Meta’s future-forward vision, which also includes display-equipped glasses and wearable neural bands. It could open up a path to display-enabled, camera-free glasses in Meta’s future lineup. It’s also likely an effort by Meta to find more acceptable ways to bring its AI to people’s faces, with or without cameras.
You’re still locked into Meta AI
Meta’s current Muse Spark-based AI on the glasses responds quickly and can provide live language translation and turn-by-turn navigation, set timers and serve as a general conversational research companion. But Meta’s support for connecting other services remains limited, and the privacy improvements promised for the company’s AI services in September haven’t arrived yet.
Fully agentic Muse AI is arriving on Meta’s glasses in the next year, but it’s unclear when. Muse already has an entire connected ecosystem of services, many of which require connecting other accounts to it. Some of Meta’s higher-powered AI models are now requiring extra subscription costs.
What this all means for Meta’s AI glasses over the next year is still a little unclear. They’ll increasingly become tools for tapping into those agents, perhaps to do work or monitor parts of your life. Currently, I don’t use Meta AI for much beyond short conversations about things I want to know on the fly.
Will Meta also explore always-recording “audio memories” in the future, capturing or summarizing conversations as companies like Apple and many others are already doing or promising? And if so, how will that be handled?
What I guess this means is that camera-free Meta glasses could gain acceptance in places where camera-enabled glasses are increasingly being banned. They could also offer a more reassuring option for people who want audio AI glasses but don’t want cameras. Still, most of the glasses Meta sells have cameras, and its AI is advancing so quickly that the shape of future smart glasses could change just as rapidly. They’re solid as wearable audio, but with Google’s glasses and a host of other audio glasses on their way in the next year, Ray-Bans are far from your only option.
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I started with CNET reviewing laptops in 2009. Now I explore wearable tech, VR/AR, tablets, gaming and future/emerging trends in our changing world. Other obsessions include magic, immersive theater, puzzles, board games, cooking, improv and the New York Jets. My background includes an MFA in theater which I apply to thinking about immersive experiences of the future. See full bio
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