Last Updated:
Meta unveiled its new display smart glasses in the same month as the iPhone 17 series was announced by Apple. Is that a mere coincidence?
Meta’s new glasses come with a built-in display that lets you do things without a phone
Meta Ray Ban display glasses took us back in time when Google unveiled the Glass more than 10 years ago and everyone thought, why do we need it. Fast-forward to 2025, and Meta is showing the right timing to bring this unique product, after testing the waters with the non-display smart glasses.
Reports claim Apple CEO Tim Cook is not worried about other smartphone brands, he is more looking at the smart glasses segment that can disrupt and dethrone iPhone’s supremacy.
Which is why it was intriguing to see both iPhone 17 series and the Ray Ban Display glasses announced between a week’s gap. That was surely no coincidence and it seems the phone vs glasses battle has already started.
Meta’s Display Glasses: The New iPhone 17 Rival?
Smart glasses have shown us some promise but they do feel like a precursor to the big event, and that’s where the display-based glasses come to the fore. Many have said that smartphone innovation has stagnated, even though phones are getting slimmer by the year.
But the true purpose of having a phone has lost its charm which is why now you only see new colour tones, slight tweaks in how the cameras look at the back and the annual hardware upgrades.
The prices are also going up every year, which means the $800 (Rs 69,500 approx) Meta Ray Ban Display glasses will cost you less than the starting price of the new iPhone 17 model. The new Ray Ban model even gets gesture support for better controls with a neural band that is bundled with the glasses.
So, the thought of these glasses (and many more to come) rivaling the iPhones and other Android brands is not far-fetched by any means.
Apple would have probably seen the Vision Pro range to be the actual disrupter but a mass market product (in comparative measures to a Rs 3 lakh headset) is what maybe the consumer is looking for, especially when it can become your second display on the eyes.
If Samsung had claims to launch the first phablet and then foldables, Meta has the undisputed lead in the smart glasses market, with the traditional rivals yet to catch up. Even Google has been slow in this space, not because it didn’t see the potential but for its focus on AI with Gemini which will eventually form a big part of the Android wearable ecosystem in the glasses segment.
The Demo Fail
During the Meta Connect 2025 earlier this month, the company wanted to give us a demo of the Display glasses which did not work. The reasons are only known to those inside Meta but you can see its impact without even seeing it work. This is a product that many have seen before but this new version with AI in tow shows what Apple is worried about, especially with its own ambitions moving slowly.
S Aadeetya, Special Correspondent at News18 Tech, accidentally got into journalism 10 years ago, and since then, has been part of established media houses covering the latest trends in technology and helping fr…Read More
S Aadeetya, Special Correspondent at News18 Tech, accidentally got into journalism 10 years ago, and since then, has been part of established media houses covering the latest trends in technology and helping fr… Read More
September 22, 2025, 14:10 IST
Read More
