NEW YORK — Meta Platforms Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a new line of smart glasses starting at $299, aiming to broaden access to AI-powered wearable technology as competition intensifies in the emerging market.

The Meta Glasses represent the company’s first in-house designed eyewear without Ray-Ban or Oakley branding, though they maintain a partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of those brands. The lower price point undercuts the entry-level second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses by at least $80.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has prioritized wearables as part of the company’s strategy to establish a hardware platform in the artificial intelligence era. While virtual reality headsets have remained niche, smart glasses have shown stronger consumer adoption, with millions of units sold since the initial Ray-Ban Meta launch in 2021.

The new glasses lack a display screen but feature a camera, open-ear speakers, and integration with Meta’s AI assistant. Users can ask the AI for real-time translations, object recognition, reminders, or to capture photos and videos. Content can be easily shared to Instagram or WhatsApp.

The glasses come in three new designs with multiple variations, including options for prescription lenses. A dedicated charging stand accompanies the product. Battery life reaches up to eight hours, according to company specifications.

Meta executives highlighted the accessible pricing as key to expanding the market. “Our partnership with EssilorLuxottica is about putting powerful AI into frames people actually want to wear,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “I believe glasses are going to be a main way people access personal superintelligence — and with Meta Glasses, we’re going to make that accessible to a lot more people.”

Market Strategy and Competition

Meta and EssilorLuxottica currently hold more than 80 percent market share in smart glasses, according to industry estimates. The new models aim to build on that lead by appealing to a broader audience with stylish designs and lower costs.

The announcement comes amid growing competition. Google recently revealed plans for new computerized eyewear in partnership with Warby Parker, powered by its Gemini AI. Snap Inc. last week introduced Specs, premium smart glasses priced at $2,195 that its CEO positioned as a potential smartphone successor.

Meta’s approach emphasizes lightweight, fashionable frames without bulky screens for everyday use. The company previously launched Ray-Ban Display glasses with built-in screens at $799, targeting more advanced augmented reality experiences.

Analysts see smart glasses as a stepping stone toward more sophisticated AR devices. Meta views them as a way to own consumer hardware interactions in the AI era, reducing reliance on smartphones for certain tasks.

Features and Privacy Considerations

The Meta Glasses include a 12-megapixel camera for capturing moments and AI capabilities for contextual assistance. Open-ear audio allows users to listen to music or receive information without isolating themselves from surroundings.

Privacy remains a key concern with camera-equipped wearables. Meta has implemented indicators when recording is active, but critics continue raising questions about always-on capabilities and data collection. The company maintains that user controls and transparency features address these issues.

Availability begins immediately through Meta’s website, Best Buy, Amazon, and select eyewear retailers. Prescription options expand accessibility for users needing vision correction.

One limited-edition model features collaboration with influencer Kylie Jenner, including her voice for AI interactions. Pricing for special editions reaches $399.

Zuckerberg’s Wearables Focus

Zuckerberg has championed wearables since Meta’s rebranding from Facebook in 2021. While VR investments through the Reality Labs division have faced profitability challenges, smart glasses have delivered commercial success and positive consumer feedback.

The company sold millions of Ray-Ban Meta units last year alone. The new lineup aims to accelerate growth by addressing price sensitivity while maintaining premium features.

Meta continues investing heavily in AI development. Integration of its latest models into the glasses allows for more natural interactions, such as visual search and real-time assistance during conversations or travel.

Industry observers note that success in wearables could help Meta diversify beyond its core social media advertising business. Hardware platforms also create opportunities for app ecosystems and services.

Future Outlook

Meta has signaled plans for more advanced glasses with displays in coming years. The current models serve as an accessible entry point while the company refines AR technology for mainstream adoption.

The smart glasses market remains relatively small but shows strong growth potential. Analysts project increasing consumer interest as AI capabilities improve and devices become more seamless in daily life.

Competition will likely intensify with major technology players entering the space. Success will depend on balancing style, functionality, battery life, and privacy protections.

For Meta, the $299 starting price represents a strategic move to capture market share before rivals establish stronger footholds. Early reviews highlight the stylish designs and practical AI features as strengths.

As wearable technology evolves, Meta’s glasses position the company at the forefront of blending fashion with intelligent computing. The initiative underscores Zuckerberg’s vision for AI-integrated hardware becoming a primary computing interface.

I am writing this with a damp tea towel round my neck, a fan pointed at my face like an interrogation lamp, and the distinct sense that my office has been relocated to the inside of a panini press.

Outside, the Met Office has slapped a red extreme heat warning across half the country and Britain is on course to beat its June temperature record by a margin that would embarrass a sprinter. Forty degrees. In England. In a country that historically considers a barbecue a high-risk gamble.

And do you know what our political class has decided to do about it? Reverse. Gently, apologetically, but unmistakably into the hedge.

Let me be unfashionably blunt, because that is what an oven does to a man’s patience. On the single clearest day of evidence we have ever had, every major party in this country is busy softening, fudging or flat-out binning the one policy designed to stop the thermometer doing this again. And they are all, to a man and woman, doing it because they have caught a nasty case of Faragitis.

This is the bit that genuinely astonishes me. Reform has been admirably honest about its position, which is that net zero belongs, in deputy leader Richard Tice’s words, “in the dustbin”. The party wants to axe the energy department, rip up fracking restrictions and, in a phrase imported wholesale from across the Atlantic, “drill, baby, drill”. You can read it in their own words on Business Matters, and I almost respect the clarity. At least you know where you are with a man who wants to set fire to the future to save four quid on his gas bill this winter.

The line, of course, runs straight back to Donald Trump, a man who has spent years insisting that wind turbines cause cancer, kill whales and personally ruin his golf views. Farage admires Trump, Reform borrows the soundbites, and now, terrifyingly, everyone else is borrowing them from Reform. The Conservatives, who once hugged a husky for a photo opportunity, last year ditched their commitment to net zero by 2050 altogether, a move even the trade press called reckless. Labour says the right things about offshore wind, then triangulates so frantically over every actual decision that you suspect Ed Miliband is the only true believer left and they keep him in a cupboard.

It is the great British political pastime: find out what the loudest man in the pub thinks, then sprint to agree with him before last orders.

Here is my problem, and it is a businessman’s problem rather than a hippie’s. The “drill, baby, drill” crowd present themselves as the hard-headed realists and everyone else as woolly idealists. They have it precisely upside down. The realism is on the other side of the argument.

The Climate Change Committee, hardly a den of placard-waving radicals, has crunched the numbers and found that the entire cost of reaching net zero by 2050 is smaller than the hit we took from one fossil fuel price shock in 2022. One. For every pound spent, the benefits come back somewhere between two and four times over. Faster electrification, heat pumps and electric cars do not bankrupt households, they put money back in people’s pockets. The expensive option, the genuinely reckless one, is staying hooked on a commodity whose price is set by despots and weather systems we do not control.

And this is before we get to the actual business case, which is enormous and which we keep pretending is a cost rather than the single biggest growth opportunity of our lifetimes. The UK net zero economy already generates around £105 billion in value and supports more than a million jobs, the overwhelming majority of them in small and medium-sized firms, as Business Matters laid out in its coverage of the seventh carbon budget. When politicians wobble on targets, they are not protecting business. They are kneecapping the fastest-growing part of it and handing the lead to the Chinese, the Americans and anyone else with the nerve to commit.

I have written before that British businesses must not retreat from net zero, and on the hottest day in our recorded history I will say it louder, sweat and all. Doubling down is not the brave green gesture. It is the boring, sensible, profitable thing to do, which is precisely why no politician chasing Farage’s vote will say it.

So here is my modest proposal. Turn the fans off in Westminster for a week. Let them legislate at forty degrees, like the rest of us are trying to work. They will discover their convictions remarkably quickly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my tea towel needs wringing out.

Richard Alvin

Richard Alvin is a serial entrepreneur, a former advisor to the UK Government about small business and an Honorary Teaching Fellow on Business at Lancaster University.

A winner of the London Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the year and Freeman of the City of London for his services to business and charity. Richard is also Group MD of Capital Business Media and SME business research company Trends Research, regarded as one of the UK’s leading experts in the SME sector and an active angel investor and advisor to new start companies.

Richard is also the host of Save Our Business the U.S. based business advice television show.

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