Metaray-Ban displays are first-generation devices with noticeable flaws, and the metaneural bands work so well that they feel magical.
If you somehow missed it: Metaray-Ban Display is the company’s first smartglass product with all kinds of displays. Unveiled this week at Connect 2025, the product collided with a physical US retailer on September 30th, with Meta’s head of development SEMG wristbands (metaneural bands) appearing in the box.
The Metaray-Ban Display is official and includes a $800 metaneural band
Metaray-Ban display glasses are official after months of rumors and last minute leaks, and after a price of $800 including metaleneural bands.
Find out more about the specifications, features and availability of the Meta Ray-Ban display here. But what do you actually use? I learned about Meta Connect 2025.
Notes on my demo experience
Meta invited uploadVr to connect 2025 and provided 2 night accommodation. However, it did not offer a Metaray-Ban display demo before the keynote speech. The outlet, which is much smaller than the major XR news sites, received a private rear closure door demonstration before the product was announced, but UploadVR did not announce it. Last year, we didn’t get any demos for the Orion AR Glasses prototype, but developer Alex Coulombe shared his impressions on our site.
My time with Meta and wristbands along with other participants in Meta’s joint hardware demo area took place much later that day. There, they were less time to explore what the devices could do, and were constrained by shepherding along the route as part of the group.
Whatever the reason for the meta that doesn’t include gamebixby in pre-Keynote private demos, that’s why this article is coming later than other sources is partially. I flew through the Atlantic to join Connect. By the time of my unofficial demonstration, I had spent all day writing my horizon hyperscape impressions and keynote presentations, and it was 4am in my home timezone. After that, I went to sleep and woke up and it was time to cover the announcement of the developer’s keynote speech. After this I tried the Metaray-Ban Display again and headed to the airport for a 10-hour flight.
Some of the other practical impressions of Metaray-Ban Display seem to follow a similar format that I have read and seen, but the repetitive phrases suggesting a distributed story point are my unfiltered opinion: I was not given a private walkthrough, so I’m not burdened with priming for my own ideas.
Style, Form Factor, Light Leak
Apart from cost, the main trade-off of adding a display to smart glasses is also adding weight and bulk, especially to maintain an acceptable battery life.
The Metaray-Ban display weighs 69 grams. This is 52 grams of the regular Ray-Ban Metagram and 45 grams of the non-smart Ray-Ban. It’s also remarkably large. The rims are thicker and the temples are even thicker.
With regular Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, those new to them are rarely wearing smart glasses, making it hard to watch. The temple is slightly thicker than usual, but the frame is essentially the same. The only one handing out these is the camera. With a Metaray-Ban display, it’s clear that you don’t wear regular glasses. And I’m not the display fault.
ClickBait YouTube thumbnails are fake. None of the nearby connected participants were able to know if there was a display (Meta says there is a 2% light leak on the display). However, a significant increase in overall frame thickness suggests that something is not normal. These glasses are inevitably thick.
How important it is varies greatly from person to person. For some people, that doesn’t really matter. These days, thick framed glasses can even be a fashion choice. For others, it becomes a complete contract breaker. It should get worse with the ultimate true AR glasses, so we’d like to see how much bulk affects sales and retention.
When it comes to comfort, few people were not employed by Meta, but I’ll say if these glasses are enough time to be comfortable enough to wear all day. For me, in the two 15-20 minute sessions they felt perfectly well and didn’t feel any discomfort at all. However, this is not enough time to make a true evaluation.
uploadVr is planning to purchase the unit for reviews next month. I’ve heard nothing about getting units from Meta. And wear HUD glasses until the battery runs out and the comfortable questions are answered more clearly.
Like regular Ray-Ban Metaglasses, you can control Metaray-Ban displays using voice in Meta AI, or use buttons and touchpad for basic controls such as capturing images and videos, playing or pausing music. However, unlike other smart glasses up until now, the box comes with a metaleneural band and a SEMG wristband.
How do metaleneural bands work?
Metaleneural bands work by sensing activation of the wrist muscles that drive finger movements.
SEMG allows for accurate finger tracking with very few power draws and no need to consider the camera.
The metaneural band should get a battery life of around 18 hours, and Meta claims, with an IPX7 water rating.
In the current format, the metaleneural band is set to detect gestures of four fingers.
- Thumb to Middle Finger Pinch: Double tap to turn the display on/off, or single tap to return to the system menu.
- Pinching your thumb to index finger: How to “click”.
- Thumb to index finger pinch & twist: Adjust the volume or camera zoom, just like the physical volume knob.
- Like a virtual d-pad, swipe the thumb to swipe the side of your index finger.
Wake (top left), scroll (top right), click (bottom left), volume/zoom (bottom right)
The above clip has arms extended, but the beauty of SEMG is that you don’t need to do. Your hands can be placed on your side, in your feet, or even in your pocket. And it works even in complete darkness.
Meta will also be releasing a firmware update in December, allowing you to enter text by fingering text on physical surfaces such as legs. It sounds straight from science fiction. The Verge’s Victoria song says it “works shockingly well.” But I couldn’t try it.
The metaleneural band gesture controls a floating fixed head-up display (HUD) visible only in the right eye, and is located in the center on the right and right sides.
This fixed HUD covers approximately 20 degrees of vision. To understand how wide it is, extend your right arm completely straight, then turn your hands inward 90 degrees, keeping the rest of your arms straight. Do the same thing to understand how high you are, but point your hands up. I apologize for the physical discomfort you just experienced, but you have now learned how little HUD in your right eye vision meta.
This clip from Meta shows you three tabs in the system interface and how to swipe between them.
The system interface of HUD’s Meta is very similar to a smartwatch system that makes sense given its 600×600 resolution. There are three tabs, and the following three tabs:
- The Center Home tab (default) displays the date and time, notifications, music playback, and meta AI buttons.
- The tab on the right is a two-column app library: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Messages, Calls, Camera, Music, Photos, Captions, Maps, Tutorials, Highpart Trails (Games). You will see four lines at a time, scroll vertically to see the rest.
- The tab on the left features volume, brightness, quick controls and settings that go in the way, as well as shortcuts to captions, cameras and music.
The problem is that this is all too much, given the form factor and the input system. It’s too detailed and requires too many gestures to do what you want. The interface could almost certainly be streamlined considerably.
The current Home tab feels like a waste of space if there is no notification, indicating time and meta AI buttons. You need to call meta AI via custom finger gestures rather than UI buttons. Also, the Home tab requires shortcuts for all the other important features of the glasses.
Interestingly, all along with Connect 2022, Meta has shown a prototype demo clip for exactly this. The prototype HUD had date, time, weather and latest notifications in the center, camera, message, music, and other apps, with shortcuts on the right, bottom and left, respectively, with a single tab for each. I would like to bring this with my smart glasses than what Meta has today. What happened to that?
Meta Connection 2022 A demonstration of prototype SEMG wristbands and HUD. Why doesn’t the interface of a shipping product look like this?
Much of the friction here is ultimately resolved by the integration of gaze tracking. Instead of having to swipe around the menu, you can just look at something similar to the benefits of the touchscreen above the arrows on your phone and get in a pinch with what you want. But for now I feel like I’m using an MP3 player in front of my iPod or a smartphone in front of my iPhone. SEMG will clearly be a big part of the future of computing. However, I strongly suspect that it is only half the answer to the interaction.
Another problem with navigating and interacting with Meta Ray-Ban displays is that it is getting late in my sessions that involve two independent units. The interface sometimes seemed dull during the demonstrations of Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Bosworth’s keynote speeches.
To be clear, the problem here is clearly not the wristband, but the glasses. The wristbands provide immediate haptic feedback when the gesture is recognized, and we know that when delays occur, the frame rate of the animation also slows down.
Meta confirmed with UploadVr that the Meta Ray-Ban display is equipped with Qualcomm’s original Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chipset. This is exactly the same as the 2023 Ray-Ban Meta Meta Grass, the New Refresh, and Oakley Meta Smart Glasses. Given that Qualcomm announced a new high-end AR1+ chip in June, we asked specifically whether this was a typo. However, Meta confirmed that it was not a typo. The glasses actually use a two-year-old chip – and that shows.
(If you’re in the VR space: Does this remind you of anything?)
The metaleneural band itself picked up every gesture each time. It works so well that it’s hard to believe it’s true. Volume adjustment gestures, such as pinching and twisting an imaginary knob, feel magical. However, the metaneural bands of meta are paired with today’s Let Down.
Metaleneural bands in black (left) and sand (right).
Some complain that the metaneural bands are too tight, but I think they prioritized the meta handlers to do beyond comfort. In the second demo, I adjusted to the same tension as me for my Fitbit and found that gesture recognition remains perfect. It just worked and its woven mesh material felt very comfortable.
Speaking of Fitbit, there is clearly a great potential here as Meta evolves its wristbands and does more than SEMG. During Connect Keynote, the company announced Garmin Watch Integration for All Smart Glasses. But why can’t the metaneural band itself collect fitness metrics in the case of Metaray-Ban displays? I think this will be a major focus for past generations.
Monocular problems
The images delivered to the right eye by the Meta Ray-Ban display are sharper and clearer, although they have higher angular resolution than the Apple Vision Pro. But it’s not a major flaw that your left eye doesn’t look anything.
If you’re a veteran VR user, you may have played a mod where user interface elements, shaders, or effects are rendered only with one eye, or you may run into an annoying bug. With smart glasses, I feel that it’s just as bad.
Many people asked if they could use Metaray-Ban displays to watch videos while they were out. And my answer is that glasses can actually already watch videos sent to you on Instagram and WhatsApp, but I wouldn’t really want to see them. That’s not me want It relates to any monocular display.
I experienced glasses when the display was onboard through both of my Metaray-Ban display sessions. The binocular inconsistencies induced by monocular displays are totally offensive. To be clear, I have experienced this before with other monocular glasses – it is not inherent to meta technology.
You can use the Meta Ray-Ban display to easily view notifications and view navigation routes without having to look down. However, I definitely don’t want to keep the display longer than this. It eliminates use cases like video calls.
Reading and looking at impressions of Metaray-Ban displays from other outlets and influencers, I was surprised to see people who have not explored monocular issues at all, beyond simply mentioning it as a minor trade-off.
Can I be more sensitive to binocular rivalry than most people? perhaps. But that was the feeling I heard in my ears from other attendees demonstrating my glasses.
“I actually heard it all day,” the event staff leading the demo group said of the visually unpleasant sensations of the display, which are only visible in one eye.
Are Meta’s HUD glasses only visible on one eye?
Why do Meta’s first HUD glasses only appear in one eye? The explanation from Meta CTO seems to provide a reason.
The problem here is that Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth has been found to have a binocular display system component. more It’s more expensive than twice as much as a monocular thing, as it needs to implement disparity correction. It also drives bulk and weight more.
Based on background conversations with people in the LCOS and waveguide supply chain, if meta decides to use a binocular design that includes the additional batteries and disparity corrections that are needed, we estimate that the product will probably be around $1,200 with a weight of at least about 85 grams.
Still, with that being said, I insist that it is worth it. Metaray-Ban Display is already an early adopter by its nature, and the form factor is appealing only to those who don’t care about most of it. I may be wrong, but I think early adopters of HUD glasses will be drawn to binocular options when they become available. Which of the major players will offer first?
Conclusion and silence
In many ways, Metaray-Ban display glasses remind us of the Metaquest Pro headset. It was also suppressed by having only one of the outdated chips and important components (in that case, a color camera in the case of Metaray-Ban displays).
Don’t get me wrong here. You can imagine the Meta Ray-Ban display to be extremely useful for checking notifications and instructions on the go. But it’s intriguing about so many things. If it’s binoculars, has eye tracking and is driven by a slightly stronger chip, I’d like to use it all day long.
But we’re not there yet, and the products I tried were clumsy and monocular.
Now, as a pair, glasses and wristbands have brought frustration and joy in equal parts. But they also filled me with excitement for the future. The metaneural band works so well that it feels magical and I strongly doubt that Meta can have an iPod moment if it pairs up with better glasses.
(On the other hand, that iPhone moment has to wait for a true AR.)
