Meta turns its smart glasses into hearing aids
At its Connect conference, Meta unveiled camera-free Ray-Bans, a virtual reality headset shaped like glasses and a $149 hearing aid feature. First market: the United States.
- Meta Connect, 23 September: smart glasses at the heart of the announcements.
- An FDA-authorised hearing aid at $149, first in the United States.
- Camera-free Ray-Bans at $349 and a glasses-shaped virtual reality headset for 2027.
Meta held its annual Connect conference on 23 September 2026. Smart glasses took up most of the stage, with a new idea: making them useful to people who do not hear well.
A hearing aid without a prescription
The “Hearing Enhancement” feature has been authorised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an over-the-counter hearing aid, for mild to moderate hearing loss. Users set it up themselves in a few minutes, with the glasses and the app. After a free 30-day trial, it costs a one-off $149, or is included in the Meta One subscription. It arrives first in the United States, by the end of the year.
The other announcements
- Ray-Ban Meta Audio: no camera, with a voice assistant, from $349, shipping from 13 October.
- Third-generation Ray-Ban Meta: slimmer, 9 hours of battery life, from $449.
- Meta VR Glasses: virtual reality in a 100-gram frame, about $1,300, in spring 2027.
- Muse, Meta’s AI assistant, is coming to the glasses.
The camera-free models also answer a long-standing criticism: the fear of being filmed without one’s knowledge by someone wearing smart glasses.
- Everything announced at Meta Connect 2026, Engadget.
- At Meta Connect, the company’s smart glasses were everywhere, TechCrunch.
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