Meta Unveils $349 Camera-Free Ray-Ban Audio Glasses After Privacy Backlash
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 24
Meta Unveils $349 Camera-Free Ray-Ban Audio Glasses After Privacy Backlash
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 24
Summary
$349 Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses drop the camera entirely and instead center on microphones for calls, music and access to Meta’s AI assistant.
Meta framed the redesign as an upgrade—lighter, slimmer frames and the longest battery life in its glasses lineup—after camera-equipped versions drew complaints over covert recording.
Millions of the earlier roughly $300 smart glasses had sold, but reports of users filming women in gyms, bathrooms and changing rooms helped earn them the nickname “pervert glasses.”
Meta will keep selling camera-equipped models and introduced a private AI mode inaccessible to employees, but the launch did not include new safeguards against inappropriate recording.