Ray-Ban Meta tips and tricks: voice shortcuts, battery saver, photo import and privacy

You can wake Meta AI on Ray-Ban Meta glasses three ways: say "Hey Meta", tap and hold the touchpad on the frame, or, on Gen 3, press the customizable action button. Meta's help center lists the first two, and its Gen 3 announcement describes the action button as giving "instant access to Meta AI."

This page collects the shortcuts and settings that change how the glasses behave day to day, and each section links to our detailed guide. It is based on Meta's help center, newsroom and privacy pages as read on Oct. 28, 2026, and on our own Ray-Ban Meta guides. We haven't tested the glasses ourselves, and where a tip applies to only some models, we say so.

Voice controls for calls and music

During a call, say "Hey Meta" and then Mute, Unmute, Camera on, Camera off, Hang up or End call to control it hands-free, according to Meta's help center. The same page lists Pause, Next, Play, Volume up and Volume down for media. Our voice commands guide sorts the full list by task, and our guides to calls and messages and music and podcasts go deeper on those two jobs.

How the assistant wakes and listens is set in the Meta AI app, and our Hey Meta settings guide walks through those options. If the glasses don't answer at all, start with our guide to fixing "Hey Meta".

Touchpad and capture button shortcuts

The touchpad on the right arm handles playback: tap once to pause, double tap to skip, triple tap to go back and swipe to change the volume. The capture button takes a photo with a press and starts a video with a long press. Our touchpad guide lists every gesture and how to set up the Gen 3 action button, and our photo and video guide covers the camera.

If the glasses wake Meta AI or pause your music when you didn't mean them to, check what is on your head. Ray-Ban says wet hair, helmets, hats and other head accessories can sometimes trigger the touch sensor.

Battery saver: what it adds and what it pauses

Battery saver is a mode that pauses high-drain background functions to stretch the charge, according to Meta's help center. Switched on at 20% battery, Meta says it can add up to 47%, about 1.5 extra hours. Switched on at a full charge, it can add up to 88%, about 7.9 extra hours.

While it is on, "Hey Meta" is paused, so you use the touchpad to reach Meta AI, and the longest video drops from three minutes to one. You can also set battery saver to turn on by itself when the battery reaches 20% without charging. It turns off again once the glasses reach 75% on the charger. Meta says it is available on all Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Oakley HSTN and Oakley Vanguard.

For the baseline, Meta rates Gen 3 at up to nine hours, an hour more than Gen 2, and its compare page lists 50 more hours from the charging case. Our battery life guide covers every model.

Where your photos go

Photos and videos stay on the glasses until you import them into the Meta AI app, Meta's help center says. Its privacy page puts it this way: captures are stored privately on the glasses until you choose to import them or turn on auto-import.

After an import, the media is removed from the glasses and saved to your phone's photos app. Deleting it from the Meta AI app also deletes it from your phone's photo app, so delete in the app only when you are done with the phone copy. Our import guide has the steps and the fixes for an import that won't start.

Cloud copies are a separate setting, and our privacy settings guide shows where to find it.

Translation, audio balance and Muse

On Gen 3, live translation can run offline. English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and German work without an internet connection once you download the language packs, as our live translation guide explains.

At Connect, Meta announced audio controls for AI glasses wearers: you can "shift the balance toward your left or right ear with the new audio balance feature, or route all sound to a single side with mono audio," in the words of its Connect recap. Our guide to conversation focus and hearing features covers Meta's other audio tools.

Meta says Muse, its personal AI agent, is coming to its AI glasses "in the coming months," and it hasn't said which models get it first. Our Muse guide explains what it does.

Privacy controls worth setting early

The capture light keeps blinking for as long as you record video, according to Meta's privacy page. Meta's July 7 post says the light has no off switch and that, beginning with the second generation of glasses, the camera is automatically disabled if Meta detects the light has been blocked. Our LED lights guide explains every light, and our recording light guide covers what regulators say.

When you don't want the glasses active at all, the privacy page says to slide the power switch to turn them into regular eyewear, and to turn them off in sensitive spaces such as a doctor's office, a changing room or a school. It also says that when you ask Meta AI about what you're looking at, you briefly activate the camera, and that faces and license plates are automatically blurred if they appear in the frame.

Voice recordings and transcripts have their own controls, and our privacy settings guide shows where to manage them. State recording laws differ, and our guide to recording with smart glasses in the US explains the rules.

More Ray-Ban Meta guides

New to the glasses? Start with our setup guide and the complete Ray-Ban Meta guide, which covers every model and price. Our guide to apps that work with Ray-Ban Meta and our Meta AI guide cover what the assistant can do.

If something stops working, see our fixes for connection problems, stuck updates and charging, or our guide to a factory reset as a last step.