Meta shrinks VR to glasses size and strips the camera from Ray-Bans
Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled virtual-reality glasses not much bigger than ordinary spectacles.
The Meta chief executive announced the Meta VR Glasses alongside camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses at the company's annual Connect conference, held at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on 23-24 September 2026. He pitched the VR pair as a cinema, a computer and a console in one, according to live coverage of the keynote Engadget.
The VR Glasses are built for immersive entertainment on the go Dezeen. The form factor is only slightly larger than a normal pair of glasses. They weigh about 100 grams, not counting a small puck that clips onto a pocket or bag and handles the processing.
That puck is the engine. It holds the battery as well as the computing power, with up to three hours of continuous media playback from a charge. No controllers are needed. Wearers use eyes, voice and hand gestures such as swiping and pinching to move around.
Inside are ultra-compact pancake lenses, a folded optical design that shortens the distance between lens and screen, each about the size of a Scrabble tile. They feed a 5K micro-OLED display, a very high-resolution screen made for close viewing, rated at 37 pixels per degree, a measure of sharpness across the field of view.
The glasses can play games and watch entertainment from the Meta Quest platform, Meta's library for VR games and video. They use full-colour passthrough, where outside cameras show the real world inside the display, to float multiple virtual screens from a Mac or PC in front of you. A table surface can become a keyboard and touchpad.
Meta said the design is meant to let a wearer comfortably watch a full film or privately work on a long flight while still sensing the world around them Meta. The company expects to put the VR Glasses on sale in spring 2027 at US$1,299 Reuters.
The second launch is simpler. Ray-Ban Meta Audio are audio-only glasses with no camera, and Meta's first pair in that category. They have open-ear audio built into every pair for hands-free listening to music and podcasts, paired with what Meta calls powerful AI Meta. They come in classic Ray-Ban styles and connect to Amazon Music, Apple Music or Spotify through the Meta AI mobile app.
Meta described the audio launch at Connect as its biggest expansion of its AI glasses range Meta. The Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses start at US$349 and will ship from 13 October 2026 Reuters.
For fans, this means two very different ideas of going out with tech on your face. One is organised around watching and playing favourite films and games on a huge private screen. The other is organised around listening, with no lens or light to signal recording.
