Meta wants wearable AI on more faces, and it is willing to drop the Ray-Ban name to get there. On June 23, 2026, the company unveiled a new line of smart glasses designed in-house and sold under its own brand, starting at $299 — a deliberate push to bring artificial intelligence to a wider, more price-sensitive audience. The launch is one of the more concrete AI industry hardware moves of the year, and it arrives as Meta works to prove its enormous AI spending can produce consumer hits.
The new devices are called the Meta Adventurer and the Meta Fury. Both are priced $80 below the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer introduced last year, which starts at $379. By designing its own frames, Meta is taking greater control of the product while still leaning on its long-time manufacturing partner.
In-house design, EssilorLuxottica manufacturing
Although Meta designed the glasses itself — a notable departure from the Ray-Ban- and Oakley-branded models that defined its earlier wearable efforts — production is still being handled by EssilorLuxottica SA, the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley. EssilorLuxottica's logo appears alongside Meta's branding on the inside of the temple arms and on the packaging, signaling that the two companies remain tightly intertwined even as the front-facing name changes.
The decision to lead with a Meta-branded product reflects a strategic bet: owning the consumer-facing identity matters as much as the technology inside. Lowering the entry price is central to that bet.
> "You really want to be able to be in many places in the market, so reaching people isn't just about even design and style, it's also about the price point."
Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth made the remark during a press event, according to CNN. The framing highlights the tension facing every company investing in AI wearables: cutting-edge features only matter if enough people actually put the device on.
A celebrity tier and a possible camera-free model
Alongside the standard Adventurer and Fury frames, Meta introduced a $399 Starfire model in collaboration with Kylie Jenner, aimed squarely at younger consumers. The celebrity partnership underscores how seriously the company is courting mainstream, fashion-conscious buyers rather than only early adopters.
Perhaps the most intriguing signal came from a Bloomberg report: Meta suggested it is considering a version of its smart glasses without a camera. Such a device would focus on audio-centric features — phone calls, media playback, and voice interactions with the company's AI assistant — catering to users who are uncomfortable with face-worn cameras or who primarily use the microphone and speaker. Meta did not provide a release window or branding details for the camera-free concept.
The pressure behind the push
The launch comes at a pivotal moment for Meta. The company has committed tens of billions of dollars to AI research and infrastructure, and investors are increasingly demanding evidence that those outlays translate into products people buy and use. Smart glasses, which keep Meta's assistant perpetually on hand, are a key part of that narrative.
Cheaper, self-branded hardware serves two goals at once. It widens the addressable market by undercutting the price of earlier Ray-Ban Meta models, and it lets Meta capture more of the brand equity as wearable AI matures. If the strategy works, Meta could establish a durable hardware beachhead for its AI assistant in a category where Apple has yet to ship a competing device.
What the glasses actually do
Like their Ray-Ban Meta predecessors, the new Meta-branded glasses pair an onboard camera with an open-ear speaker and microphones, letting wearers capture photos and video, take calls, and converse with Meta's AI assistant without pulling out a phone. The assistant can answer questions, translate languages, identify objects in the wearer's field of view, and summarize information on demand. Meta has pitched this hands-free, always-available interaction as the core value proposition of AI eyewear — the idea that an AI assistant is most useful when it is not buried inside a smartphone screen.
Pricing the entry model at $299 is meant to push that proposition past the threshold where casual buyers are willing to experiment. The $80 reduction relative to the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer may sound modest, but in a nascent consumer category where hesitation runs high, it is positioned as the difference between a niche gadget and a mass-market device.
Competitive context
Meta is not alone in betting that glasses, rather than phones, will become the natural home for everyday AI. Rivals are exploring similar form factors, and the race to define a wearable standard is still wide open. Meta's advantage is that it already has a shipping product line, a manufacturing partner with global reach, and a willingness to experiment with both price and feature sets.
The risk is equally clear. Wearable AI is an unproven consumer category, privacy concerns around cameras remain potent, and previous attempts at smart eyewear have stumbled on exactly those points. Meta's answer is to offer more choices — lower prices, a celebrity edition, and potentially a camera-free variant — to find the combination that resonates.
For now, the message is straightforward: the same underlying technology, available to more people, at a lower cost. Whether that is enough to turn AI glasses into a mainstream staple is the question Meta is spending billions to answer.
Stay Ahead of AI
Tracking the hardware race that could define how we interact with AI? Keep AI Buzz Wire bookmarked for breaking coverage of new devices, models, and industry moves.
Read more AI news →
