Meta unveils camera-free audio glasses

Meta wants its smart glasses to help you hear, and it's dropping the camera altogether.

During his Meta Connect keynote on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked whether Meta's glasses could help people hear better, then introduced a feature called Hearing Enhancement. The feature is designed for people with mild to moderate hearing loss and turns the glasses into an over-the-counter hearing aid.

With that, Zuckerberg unveiled Meta's new audio glasses, the company's first pair without a camera. Meta says the glasses — which can stream music, take calls, and connect to Muse, the company's AI assistant — have the longest battery life of any of its glasses and will be the thinnest Ray-Bans it has made, while still coming in classic Ray-Ban styles like the Clubmaster.

"They have to be great glasses first," Zuckerberg said.

A camera-free option arrives as Meta's smart glasses face growing backlash over covert filming, with critics calling them "pervert glasses." Content creators have increasingly used the glasses to record strangers for prank and pickup-line videos, often without their consent.