Meta smart glasses
Meta smart glasses for third-party developers — SDK access, app model, distribution, capabilities & AI, and where it sits in the 2026 smart-glasses landscape.
Verified 2026-08-24 against primary sources
Openness verdict. Semi-open: a real native SDK (the Wearables Device Access Toolkit) plus a hosted Web Apps path ship today, but the platform is preview-narrow — integrations reach only testers you invite by email (every release channel is invite-only, and the per-channel limit is configured per app), public distribution is partner-gated, iOS App Store publishing is blocked, pairing requires Meta's first-party AI app, and the Meta AI assistant and "Hey Meta" wake word stay closed to developers (a few negotiated partnerships aside), so you must bring your own AI.
Covered here: Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1, 2023) · Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2, 2025) · Ray-Ban Meta Optics (prescription/optical) · Oakley Meta HSTN · Oakley Meta Vanguard · Meta Glasses (Meta's self-branded line — Adventurer, Fury, Starfire) · Meta Ray-Ban Display (monocular HUD + Meta Neural Band).
Not covered here: Meta Quest 3 / 3S / Pro · Meta (Aria) research glasses.
Overview
Meta ships the highest-volume consumer smart glasses on the market, spanning a camera-plus-audio line (Ray-Ban Meta Gen 1/2, Ray-Ban Meta Optics, Oakley Meta HSTN, Oakley Meta Vanguard) and a display-equipped flagship, the Meta Ray-Ban Display — a monocular full-color heads-up display driven by the wrist-worn Meta Neural Band (EMG). The camera/audio glasses have no screen; they capture the wearer's viewpoint (12MP camera, up to 3X zoom on Display), a 5-microphone array, and open-ear speakers. Meta Ray-Ban Display launched in the US on September 30, 2025 at $799 (glasses + Neural Band included), with expansion to Canada, France, Italy, and the UK announced for early 2026 but paused that January amid demand outstripping supply, with no new date given; the camera/audio models sell more broadly and at lower price points. Third-party access arrives through the Meta Wearables Device Access Toolkit (DAT) — a native Android/iOS SDK, in public developer preview — and a separate Display Web Apps path for the Display glasses. Meta's named launch partners skew toward accessibility and media: Be My Eyes, Microsoft Seeing AI, and HumanWare (accessibility), Twitch and 18Birdies (streaming/golf), alongside Disney Imagineering, Logitech Streamlabs, L+R, and Pixel and Texel — the accessibility use case is central to Meta's public positioning. (Building on Meta with Extentos → /docs/vendors/meta.)
What you can buy
| Model | Price | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1) meta.com ↗ | "Begynder fra 2029 kr" (DKK, Danish meta.com store; Meta shows consumer prices VAT-inclusive in DK). No live USD figure is obtainable — meta.com serves DK content regardless of locale path or query. | On sale |
| Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) meta.com ↗ | "The next generation of Ray-Ban Meta is available now on meta.com and Ray-Ban.com starting at $379 USD." (Meta, Connect 2025 blog). Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 3439 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive); a configured Wayfarer Gen 2 build page quoted "4159 kr". | On sale |
| Ray-Ban Meta Optics (Gen 2) — Blayzer Optics / Scriber Optics meta.com ↗ | "Pricing starts at $499" (Meta blog, 2026-03-31). Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 3899 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive) for both SKUs. | On sale |
| Oakley Meta HSTN meta.com ↗ | Standard collection "starting at $399 USD"; Limited Edition "available for preorder starting July 11 for $499 USD" (Meta blog). Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 3599 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive). | On sale |
| Oakley Meta Vanguard meta.com ↗ | "$499 USD", with replacement lenses at "$85 USD" sold separately (Meta blog). Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 4499 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive). | On sale |
| Meta Glasses Adventurer meta.com ↗ | "starting at just $299" (Meta blog, 2026-06-23). Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 2380 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive) for each of Adventurer and Fury, both badged "Ny". | On sale |
| Meta Glasses Fury meta.com ↗ | "starting at just $299" (Meta blog, 2026-06-23). Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 2380 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive) for each of Adventurer and Fury, both badged "Ny". | On sale |
| Meta Glasses Starfire meta.com ↗ | Meta Store, read across five national storefronts 2026-08-24: "3250 kr" (DK) · "£359" (GB) · "CA$549" (CA) · "419 €" (FR and IT). No USD figure is published. The 2380 kr previously recorded here is the Adventurer/Fury line price, not Starfire's. | On sale |
| Meta Glasses Starfire — Kylie Jenner Edition meta.com ↗ | Live Danish store: "Begynder fra 3250 kr" (DKK, VAT-inclusive), badged "Ny". No Meta-published USD figure exists for this SKU — the announcement post gives only the line-level "starting at just $299", and the $399 figure circulating for it appears only in secondary aggregation, so no USD price is asserted. | On sale |
| Meta Ray-Ban Display meta.com ↗ | "$799 USD, which includes the Meta Neural Band" (Meta, two separate blog posts). No live store price is obtainable: the product is absent from the Danish shop-all grid, and its DK product page carries no price and no buy control. | On sale |
Cheapest way to run your own code: Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), starting at $379 USD, is the cheapest model with fully documented DAT support — it is named on the Hardware requirements page, has its own firmware row (V125 at DAT 0.8.0, V126 at 0.9.0), maps to GlassesModel.RAYBAN_META, and can be mock-simulated before you buy. The catch is that no model below $799 has a screen, so DAT's display APIs and the Display Web Apps path are inert until you reach Meta Ray-Ban Display at $799 USD including the Neural Band, which is US only as of 2026-07-30.
What the listings leave out
Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1)
- 2 frame styles at the same price: Wayfarer (Gen 1) and Skyler (Gen 1).
- Whether Gen 1 is still listed in the US store is not determinable, because meta.com geolocation cannot be overridden.
- The "Fra 2029 kr" headline on /ai-glasses/ and /ai-glasses/ray-ban-meta/ is this model's price, and is easily misattributed to Gen 2.
- Meta has published no end-of-life or discontinuation notice for Gen 1, and none is asserted here.
Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2)
- 3 frame styles at the same 3439 kr entry price, with 7 frame-and-lens combinations on the Wayfarer page that lift a configured build to 4159 kr.
- The $379 figure dates to the September 2025 launch post, and a live US re-read is blocked by geolocation.
- DKK and USD prices are not reconcilable here because of VAT and market pricing, so no conversion is asserted.
Ray-Ban Meta Optics (Gen 2) — Blayzer Optics / Scriber Optics
- 2 optical frame styles at the same price, one of which (Blayzer Optics) comes in Standard and Large sizes.
- Three names refer to the same line: Meta's blog calls it "Ray-Ban Meta Optics Styles", the DAT docs call the device model "Ray-Ban Meta Optics", and the store labels the SKUs "Blayzer Optics (Gen 2)" and "Scriber Optics (Gen 2)".
- $499 is the US pre-order starting price from the announcement post, not a live US store read.
Oakley Meta HSTN
- One tile in the live grid ("Oakley MetaHSTN"); the Limited Edition that carried the $499 price is not in the live grid.
- The Limited Edition's absence from the live grid is not evidence of discontinuation; Meta has published no end-of-life notice, so no discontinued status is asserted.
- $399 and $499 are July 2025 announcement figures, and live USD pricing is unreachable.
Oakley Meta Vanguard
- One tile in the live grid, sold as "Oakley Meta Vanguard Performance AI Glasses"; the replacement PRIZM lenses are an $85 USD accessory rather than a variant.
- $499 is the September 2025 pre-order price, and live USD pricing is unreachable.
- The $85 lens accessory is a real added cost that the sticker price omits.
Meta Glasses Adventurer
- 2 frame styles at the identical 2380 kr entry price, differing only in shape.
- Meta publishes no per-model USD price; $299 is the line-level starting figure.
- The Hardware requirements sentence names Ray-Ban Meta, Ray-Ban Meta Optics and Meta Ray-Ban Display but omits both this line and the Oakley models, while the Version Dependencies tables carry rows for all of them — so the requirements page is the stale surface, and published sources do not settle which models the bare "Meta glasses" row covers.
Meta Glasses Fury
- 2 frame styles at the identical 2380 kr entry price, differing only in shape.
- Meta publishes no per-model USD price; $299 is the line-level starting figure.
- The Hardware requirements sentence names Ray-Ban Meta, Ray-Ban Meta Optics and Meta Ray-Ban Display but omits both this line and the Oakley models, while the Version Dependencies tables carry rows for all of them — so the requirements page is the stale surface, and published sources do not settle which models the bare "Meta glasses" row covers.
Meta Glasses Starfire
- The base line shows Classic Black and Sun options; full colour and lens counts are not published on the line hub.
- A bare "Meta glasses" Version Dependencies row exists from DAT 0.8.0 onward (V125 at 0.8.0, V126 at 0.9.0), but it names no individual model, so it cannot be attributed to Starfire specifically rather than to Adventurer or Fury.
- It is listed separately from the Kylie Jenner Edition because the two carry different prices on Meta's own store (2380 kr base against 3250 kr for the Kylie edition), which is a price difference rather than a colourway.
- At the SDK level it is indistinguishable from Adventurer and Fury, since all three share one enum value.
- No USD price is published.
- Full technical specifications are not published on the vendor product page.
Meta Glasses Starfire — Kylie Jenner Edition
- A single tile, split out from Adventurer and Fury because it differs on price (3250 kr against 2380 kr) rather than being a colourway.
- Meta's own blog names it "Meta Glasses by Kylie" while the store tile reads "Meta GlassesStarfire Kylie Edition".
- No primary USD price is published for this SKU.
Meta Ray-Ban Display
- A single SKU whose price is a bundle of the glasses plus the wrist-worn Meta Neural Band (EMG).
- The current US buyable state rests on Meta's September 2025 launch post plus the absence of any vendor discontinuation notice, since a live US store read is blocked by geolocation.
- The DK product page exists but sells nothing, and there is no evidence it was ever listed for sale there, so it should not be read as a delisting.
Access
The primary developer surface is the Wearables Device Access Toolkit (DAT).
| SDK | Wearables Device Access Toolkit (DAT) — a native SDK, currently at v0.9.0 (2026-08-03) |
| Languages | Kotlin (Android) and Swift (iOS) |
| Maturity | Public developer preview, not GA — APIs still shift between minor versions (the Android SDK is on GitHub with a public CHANGELOG) |
| Cost | Free. Anyone can download the SDK and build against real glasses in Developer Mode; there is no disclosed SDK license fee |
| Account needed | Only once you distribute beyond Developer Mode: a Meta Wearables Developer Center project, with an APPLICATION_ID + CLIENT_TOKEN used for app attestation |
| Hard dependency | Meta's FAQ states that the Meta AI app must be used to pair your glasses — initial setup, DAT registration, and every permission grant and device-access session run through it |
| Without hardware | A Mock Device Kit lets you develop and run automated tests, though Meta notes it "currently doesn't support display glasses" |
| Docs | wearables.developer.meta.com, backed by a public Wearables MCP server and AI-coding plugins |
| Announced | Connect 2025 (Sept 17–18; the Display + DAT reveal keynote was Sept 17), then opened as a public preview on 2025-12-04 |
App model
There are two independent third-party systems, and they do not overlap.
| DAT | Display Web Apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your code runs | Your own native iOS/Android companion app, which pairs to the glasses over Bluetooth (through the Meta AI app) and brokers a session | A standard web app you host at any public HTTPS URL, which loads directly onto the glasses |
| Works on | The camera/audio models and the Display glasses | Display-only — no support on the camera/audio glasses |
| How it gets on the device | Your companion app, installed on the phone as normal | Added on-device via the Meta AI app under App Settings → App Connections → Web Apps → Add a Web App |
| Drawing on the lens | Display-only, via a declarative Kotlin/Swift component API where each sendContent() (Android) / send() (iOS) call replaces the whole screen | Ordinary web APIs, with no app-store or native build |
DAT is the general-purpose path (camera, audio, display); Web Apps is a lighter, display-surface path.
Distribution
During preview, distribution is deliberately narrow on both paths — though by different mechanisms, and only the DAT path is invite-bounded.
| DAT | Display Web Apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can install | Testers you invite by email, each needing a Meta Account, who accept via wearables.meta.com/invites | Anyone who receives the link |
| How you share it | Invite-only release channels managed in the Wearables Developer Center | You host at a public HTTPS URL and share a link/QR from the Meta AI app's Share link button (Meta's Display build post describes these as password-protected URLs); recipients with Developer Mode enabled add it in one tap |
| Ceiling | Meta states "all release channels for Device Access Toolkit are currently invite-only" and that "the maximum number of release channels per integration and users per channel are configured per app" — so the release-channel docs publish no fixed number, though Meta's Display-glasses build guide says you can share DAT builds "with up to 100 testers" in Developer Preview. Check your own project's distribution page for its actual limits | No invite or release-channel gate — though every recipient must enable Developer Mode in the Meta AI app before they can add it |
| Review | No published content-review criteria or app-review guidelines. Meta's setup docs name a "publishing review" that Developer Mode lets you skip, but publishing is not open during the developer preview, so no criteria for it have been published. The only review documented in detail is an internal permission-justification check (camera/microphone/voice-invocation), which is not shown to end users | None |
| Publishing to the general public | Partner-gated in preview — only select partners (Meta names the accessibility/media roster above plus Disney Imagineering, Logitech Streamlabs, L+R, Pixel and Texel) could publish broadly — with general availability planned for 2026 | Ungated |
| A store | — | Meta ships no first-party store, but discovery is not nonexistent: community catalogs have filled the gap, notably MetaGlassApps and GlassApps, where Display Web Apps can be browsed and submitted. They are unofficial and unaffiliated with Meta, so treat them as a community index rather than a distribution channel Meta supports |
| iOS App Store | Not currently supported: because DAT uses Apple's ExternalAccessory/MFi framework, App Store submission leads to rejection today. The sanctioned iOS path is release channels (and Meta's own signing/TestFlight-style sharing) | n/a — it is a web app |
Capabilities, limits & AI
| Capability | Third-party access |
|---|---|
| Camera | Photo capture and live video streaming over DAT at three resolution tiers (LOW 360×640, MEDIUM 504×896, HIGH 720×1280); HEVC is available as an opt-in StreamConfiguration codec (the default stream can be raw), and the Display's camera is 12MP with 3X zoom. |
| Microphone / audio in | The 5-mic array is captured via Bluetooth HFP — Meta documents the link as 8 kHz mono voice-band audio, though wideband mSBC at 16 kHz is negotiated on some phone/glasses pairings — and you request it through the OS audio session (there is no raw multi-mic array API). |
| Audio out / TTS | Playback to the open-ear speakers is done by routing your own audio over Bluetooth A2DP; there is no built-in TTS engine — you bring the audio bytes. |
| On-lens display | Only on Meta Ray-Ban Display — via DAT's declarative layout components (vertical scroll only, full-screen replace) or via Web Apps (fixed 600×600 additive overlay, dark UI recommended). |
| Web Apps API surface | Motion and orientation data (IMU via DeviceMotionEvent/DeviceOrientationEvent), phone GPS geolocation, first-class Meta Neural Band input, and client-side local storage, all through standard web APIs. On the DAT (native) side, Meta's permissions docs note that new device capabilities may be added in future iterations, so accelerometer/inclinometer/IMU access is not part of the current preview. |
| Input | on Display, navigation comes from the Neural Band EMG and temple captouch gestures, surfaced to Web Apps as arrow-key/Enter events (no mouse/touch/keyboard; text input unsupported). |
| Reserved surfaces | The "Hey Meta" wake word, Meta AI, and system 'transactions' (notifications, Hey Meta) are system-owned; raw Neural Band gesture signals and IMU-for-gesture are not exposed. |
| AI & the assistant | Meta AI is closed as a developer API — a handful of curated partners aside. Be My Eyes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible and iHeart are invocable through the wake word today ("Hey Meta, call a volunteer with Be My Eyes"), but those are Meta AI feature partnerships, not DAT apps, and Meta publishes no application route to become one. Meta states voice commands and Meta AI capabilities are 'not part of our initial developer preview' and only something it is 'exploring for future updates.' There is no official bring-your-own-assistant hook into Meta AI and no custom system wake word — a third-party wake phrase runs phone-side on the mic stream; third parties implement their own AI by capturing mic/camera in their companion app and running their own STT/LLM/TTS off-device (phone or cloud). DAT does expose a 'voice invocation' permission to start your integration by voice, but that is invocation, not access to Meta AI. There is no third-party on-device AI runtime — and Web Apps explicitly lack camera and microphone access. |
Roadmap
Momentum is steady and dated.
- 2025-09-17: Meta Ray-Ban Display ($799) and DAT revealed in the Connect Day-1 keynote (developer coverage spans Sept 17–18).
- 2025-09-30: Display ships in the US.
- 2025-10-30: DAT SDK v0.1.0 (initial public release).
- 2025-12-04: DAT enters public developer preview.
- 2026-02-03: v0.4.0 adds Display support
- 2026-04-15: v0.6.0 adds Ray-Ban Meta Optics + HEVC streaming
- 2026-05-14: v0.7.0 adds the Display capability + the Device Access Toolkit App Model (DAM)
- 2026-06-25: v0.8.0 broadens model support (Oakley Meta HSTN/Vanguard, Meta Glasses) and adds
clearDisplay(); 2026-08-03: v0.9.0 consolidates streaming under a newCameracapability (DeviceSession.addCamera/Camera.stream/CameraState, replacingaddStream/removeStream), addsFlexBoxScope.buttonGroupand localBitmapimages, routes taps on display components back to the app, makes the Device Access Toolkit App Model always-on (theDAM_ENABLEDopt-out is gone), and removesDisplayComponentandVideoScope. - Announced / planned: general-availability public publishing in 2026; Meta's permissions docs note that new device capabilities may be added in future iterations (specifics such as microphone-array or IMU exposure are not committed); and Meta AI/voice-command access is named as an area it is 'exploring for future updates.' Display international expansion (Canada, France, Italy, UK) was slated for early 2026, but Meta paused it on 2026-01-06 citing unprecedented demand and limited inventory, and has given no new date.
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