Meta Showcased Audio-Only Smart Glasses at Connect

Meta’s smart glasses featured prominently at this year’s Meta Connect, according to TechCrunch’s Lucas Ropek, who tried several pairs at the event. Among them were two unreleased audio-only models: one focused on entertainment and communication, and another designed for people with hearing loss.

The first model has six microphones and no camera or built-in way to record its surroundings. Ropek found it lighter and more comfortable than other smart glasses he had worn. Meta staff described options for listening to music and taking phone calls. The glasses are also due to integrate with Muse, Meta’s personal agentic system, letting users give it spoken commands. That integration was not yet publicly available. In Ropek’s test, Muse sometimes mistook his conversation with a staff member for a command, and he had to speak directly to it.

Meta’s other audio-only glasses are intended to help people with hearing loss. A member of Meta’s research team told Ropek the product had been in development for about five years. The glasses amplify speech, with focused and omnidirectional settings. Ropek reported that they would sell for $150, compared with hearing aids that can cost as much as $1,600.

Ropek described smart glasses as a niche that has yet to find its footing, despite their strong presence at Connect. The report presents Meta as trying to make its glasses stylish, functional, and useful, while leaving open whether consumers broadly embrace them.