Meta’s $1,000 smart glasses with built-in screen reportedly launching this year — here’s what you will see through them

Meta’s higher-end Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses with a built-in screen may be coming sooner than you think! Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is reporting that they may launch as early as the end of this year — probably being announced at this year’s Meta Connect.

But not only that, Gurman’s source has also revealed how they will work. These involve capacitive touch control, hand gestures and a selection of apps that appear in the bottom of the right lens.

In Meta’s own words, this is the “most critical year” for smart glasses — especially with Android XR just around the corner (and that tie-up with Xreal bringing something that could compete).

And while part of Meta’s plan to launch Oakleys seems a little cringe (yes commenters, I see you and your points are well-made), I’m fully on board for the next gen Ray-Bans (codenamed "Hypernova") to bring the heat. Here’s what we know about them so far.

Wave and tap your way through life

According to the anonymous source, this first go at Meta glasses with a built-in screen will pack a tiny monocular display in the right-hand lens (look down for the best view) — firing up notifications from your phone, letting you look at photos and even seeing directions.

All of this will be controlled by tapping/swiping on the capacitive touch surface on the sides of the frame or by hand gestures picked up by an sEMG wristband (codenamed Ceres). If that sounds familiar, it’s the wristband you saw with Orion.

The UI will look similar to the horizontal dock of apps you see on the Meta Quest 3 — built on a highly customized version of Android (no integrated app store, though) with Meta’s own apps like Messenger and WhatsApp built in.

As for the built-in camera, Meta is targeting a snapper that can compete with the iPhone 13 (12MP, wide aperture), and there will be a new case that has a triangular prism shape that can be folded.

Over $1,000 is a steep price

Now, I’m not going to lie to you — when I first read that price, I almost did a spit-take. Gurman is reporting that Hypernova could go for as high as $1,300 to $1,400. Essentially, you’d be paying a grand extra for that screen and apps.

Plus, this isn’t the full spatial computing dream that we saw with Meta Orion, as that’s reserved for Project “Artemis” launching in 2027. So make no mistake about it: this is for the early adopters.

But if Meta can achieve two key things, they’ll be onto something here:

• Give me fashionista vibes: The company that’s got closest to being able to sneak an on-board display into smart glasses is TCL with the RayNeo X3 Pro, but they’re still pretty techy-looking. If the next-gen Ray-Bans can keep the same sleek form factor as the originals while upgrading the tech, we’re onto a winner.
• Find that killer app: To disconnect from just getting your phone out of your pocket, smart glasses have got to find that killer app that it can do immeasurably better. Navigation, AI, fitness, whatever it is, Hypernova needs it.

I’d love to know what you think, though. My apologies to Oakley lovers too — can we still be friends?

More from Tom's Guide

• Samsung’s 'Haean' smart glasses will reportedly launch this year — here's everything to expect
• 5 reasons the Meta Orion AR glasses are either the missing link in spatial computing — or a total gimmick
• Apple Vision Pro just got Apple Intelligence and fresh spatial experiences — everything new in visionOS 2.4