What are smart glasses? A plain-English guide to types, prices and privacy in 2026

Smart glasses are glasses with electronics built into the frame. Most have microphones and small open-ear speakers in the temples, many add a camera, and a few have a tiny display inside the lens. They connect to your phone and, in most cases, to an AI assistant you talk to. The best-selling kind, such as Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, has no screen at all: you speak, and the glasses answer in your ear.

This guide is based on manufacturers' announcements, help pages and published specifications, along with market figures from Omdia and Counterpoint Research.

The main kinds of smart glasses

Companies haven't agreed on names. Meta sorts its glasses into "camera AI glasses," "display AI glasses" and augmented reality glasses. Google says its "intelligent eyewear" will come as audio glasses and display glasses. What you can buy or order in the US falls into five groups:

Labels can mislead. The glasses Samsung is building for Google with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker are called audio glasses, but Google says they can "snap high-quality photos and videos," so they belong with the camera models. Meta's VR Glasses, due in spring 2027, are a separate category: virtual reality in a glasses shape, with a passthrough camera that shows you the room. We break down the differences in AI glasses vs AR glasses vs display glasses.

What smart glasses can do

Audio is the core. Meta says audio "has been our most popular feature since day one," and every pair in its lineup plays music and podcasts and handles calls. Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 uses a six-microphone array that Meta says cuts more than 90% of background noise.

Camera models take photos and video hands-free. Gen 3 has a 12MP camera with a 100-degree field of view and records up to 3K video, according to Meta. Photos stay on the glasses until you import them to your phone through the Meta AI app, which moves them into your phone's photo library and deletes them from the glasses, Meta's help center says.

The assistant is what makes them "AI glasses." You can ask Meta AI about what you're looking at, set reminders or get live translation, and in June Meta said it was adding 14 languages to translation, including Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi and Korean. Google's glasses will use Gemini, and Meta says its Muse agent is coming to its glasses "in the coming months."

Display glasses show information instead of only speaking it. Meta Ray-Ban Display shows messages, walking directions, live captions and a camera viewfinder on a small color display placed off to the side of your view. You control it with Meta Neural Band, a wristband that reads the muscle signals behind small finger movements. Even Realities' G2 has a teleprompter, translation in 35 languages and notifications.

Screen glasses work like a portable monitor. XREAL says its One Pro shows a virtual screen of up to 171 inches when connected to any device with USB-C.

There are accessibility features, too. Meta's hearing enhancement software, cleared by the FDA for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, comes to supported glasses in the US later this year for $149.99.

How they work

Hamburg's data protection office took apart a first-generation Ray-Ban Meta pair for a report published in September. Inside it found a 12MP wide-angle camera, five microphones, two speakers, 32GB of flash storage, a rechargeable battery, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a touch panel. The glasses rely on the phone app for setup, media transfer and sharing, and requests to the assistant go to Meta's servers.

Display models add a light engine and a see-through lens that carries the image to your eye. Even Realities uses a green microLED display and waveguides in the G2, with a 27.5-degree field of view. Snap's Specs use a liquid crystal on silicon display with a 51-degree field of view. XREAL's One Pro uses a Sony Micro-OLED panel.

Battery life follows the hardware. Meta rates Gen 3 at up to nine hours, plus 50 more from the charging case, and the camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio at up to 12 hours. Meta Ray-Ban Display lasts up to six hours of mixed use. Snap says Specs run up to four hours, with four more charges in the case.

Who makes smart glasses

Meta, working with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, dominates. Omdia estimates that 8.7 million AI glasses shipped worldwide in 2025, 322% more than in 2024, and that Meta accounted for 7.4 million of them, or 85.2%. Its lineup now spans Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, its own Meta Glasses brand and Meta Ray-Ban Display, and Meta says it will offer more than 100 styles by the end of the year.

Chinese companies follow. Omdia ranks Rokid and Xiaomi second and third worldwide, and says Chinese companies including Rokid, Alibaba and Even Realities shipped 71% of the AI glasses that had displays in 2025.

In the US, the other names to know are Snap, which makes Specs; XREAL, which makes screen glasses and the Android XR-based Aura; Amazon, with its Echo Frames audio glasses; and Google and Samsung, whose first glasses together are due this fall. Apple hasn't announced glasses. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple is targeting late 2027, according to Engadget.

What smart glasses cost

Prices below are US starting prices from each company.

Prescription lenses can add to the cost: XREAL, for example, sells them separately from $49.90. Google hasn't announced prices for its glasses. On Oct. 29, 2026, XREAL's US store listed the One at $399 with a back-in-stock sign-up and no restock date, and the One Pro at $539. XREAL Aura's launch pricing starts at $1,099 through the end of the year, and orders opened on Oct. 28, Google says.

Privacy and the law

Every pair of Meta camera glasses has a white "capture LED" on the front that blinks while it takes a photo or video. Meta says the light has no off switch and that, from the second generation on, the camera stops working if the light is blocked. Regulators aren't convinced it's enough. Hamburg's investigators found the light hard to see outdoors, and Europe's privacy board said in October that smart glasses "should make their recording obvious." Our guide to smart glasses recording lights explains what each brand's light means.

In the US, recording a conversation is legal in most states as long as you're part of it, but about a dozen states require everyone's consent, and every state restricts hidden cameras in private places such as bathrooms and changing rooms. Some places set their own rules: New York's courts have banned glasses with cameras or microphones since July 20, and Royal Caribbean doesn't allow recording glasses in areas such as restrooms and its casinos. See is it legal to record with smart glasses and, for the people on the other side of the lens, what bystanders should know and can do. Our analysis of how regulators are pushing back covers Norway's planned ban.

How to choose a pair

Start with the camera question. If you want photos, video and an assistant that can see what you see, you want camera glasses like Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3. If you mostly want music, calls and voice help, audio glasses such as Ray-Ban Meta Audio are lighter, at 43 grams, and cheaper. Don't count on them to get past every ban, though: New York's courts also exclude glasses with microphones.

Then decide whether you need a display. Directions and messages in your lens cost more, $799 for Meta Ray-Ban Display, and display models come in far fewer styles: Meta's comes in two colors. If you wear glasses all day, check the prescription range before anything else. And if what you really want is a big screen for movies or games, screen glasses like XREAL's are a different, cheaper purchase.

Our best smart glasses guide sorts the current models by need, the prescription guide lists every lens option, and the upcoming smart glasses tracker shows what's coming next. For how we got here, from Google Glass in 2013 onward, see our smart glasses timeline.

Correction, Oct. 31, 2026: The price table listed the XREAL One as on sale and the One Pro at $599. On Oct. 29, 2026, XREAL's US store showed a back-in-stock sign-up for the One and listed the One Pro at $539, so the table now says that. It also now gives XREAL Aura's launch pricing from $1,099, which Google announced on Oct. 28, in place of the $1,279 starting price from XREAL's Oct. 7 announcement.