At Meta Connect, the company’s smart glasses were everywhere
TechCrunch Lucas Ropek ● Covered by 15 sources
Meta put smart glasses everywhere at Connect, including new audio-only pairs. The push is about making them useful enough to beat the privacy cringe and the novelty wear-off.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Lucas Ropek — read the original for the full story.
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Meta Connect this year had a very clear theme: glasses, glasses, and more glasses. Meta staff wore them. Influencers wore them. The demos leaned on them too. The company’s smart glasses line wasn’t just present; it was the point of the show.
The most interesting pair I tried was Meta’s new audio-only model, which the company still hasn’t released. It has six microphones, no camera, and no built-in way to record the world around you. That alone puts some distance between these specs and the “pervert glasses” backlash Meta recently faced over its camera-equipped versions. They’re also lighter than the other smart glasses I’ve worn, and more comfortable than you’d expect from something this weird-looking.
Meta wants these to be more than a novelty. The staffer demoing them kept coming back to two use cases: music and calls. You can listen without earbuds, take phone calls without fishing out your phone, and, through Meta’s Muse system, give verbal commands to an agent that can do things on your behalf. Meta also plans to dress that agent up with cute digital avatars, which sounds charming until you remember how quickly voice systems get confused when humans start behaving like humans. In my demo, the glasses kept thinking I was talking to Muse whenever I was actually speaking to the Meta staffer beside me.
Still, there was a real sense of utility here, especially once the glasses started answering questions the way a tiny ChatGPT would. When I asked about World War II, the response was short and correct. Meta also showed off glasses for people with hearing loss, a more obviously practical product. The company says those have been in development for about five years and will sell for $150, far below the $1,600 some hearing aids can cost. They can switch between focused amplification and omnidirectional pickup, which is a very hardware-company way of saying: pick your listening mode and move on.
The bigger story is that Meta seems determined to make smart glasses normal before anyone else does. That’s a long shot, but at least the company is trying the unsexy thing: usefulness. Weirdly enough, that may be the strongest pitch in a market full of shiny distractions.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Meta is doing the right kind of boring here: less “future of computing,” more “does this help on a bus or in a grocery store?” That’s the sort of product strategy that actually survives contact with the public. Smart glasses don’t need another sermon; they need a reason not to be a punchline.
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