Meta unveils Ray-Ban Display glasses and EMG wristband

Meta just dropped the next phase of its wearable strategy, and it doesn't involve heavy VR goggles or talking to yourself on the sidewalk.

At Meta Connect 2025 on September 17, Mark Zuckerberg revealed the Meta Ray-Ban Display alongside the Meta Neural Band. Priced at $799, the device hit retail availability on September 30, following leaks earlier that week under its internal codename, Hypernova.

While previous Ray-Ban Meta glasses sold millions of units without screens, this new version adds a small, full-color, high-resolution display tucked into the right lens. It stays off to the side for glanceable tasks—like WhatsApp notifications, walking directions, and step-by-step Meta AI answers—rather than blocking your view like a phone strapped to your face.

A wristband that reads muscle twitches

The real showstopper here isn't the display; it's the Meta Neural Band. Resembling a screenless Fitbit, the band uses surface electromyography (sEMG) to detect electrical motor signals flowing from your brain to your fingers.

Meta claims the sensors are sensitive enough to register movements before they are visually perceptible. You can navigate menus, dismiss alerts, or flip through camera previews with tiny thumb swipes or finger pinches, with micro-typing planned for the near future.

To make it work out of the box across varied body types, Meta trained its models on nearly 200,000 research participants. The wristband offers up to 18 hours of battery life, an IPX7 water rating, and uses Vectran—a high-strength fiber used on Mars Rover landing airbags.

Unlike the Orion AR prototype Meta showcased last year, which packed eye-tracking and full holographic lenses into an unreleased frame, this hardware is simplified, grounded, and ready for retail.

Why it matters

We think pairing a heads-up display with an EMG wristband is the smartest hardware move Meta has made in years.

Voice commands feel awkward in public, and tapping on glasses frames looks clunky. Subtle finger twitches in your pocket solve the primary friction of smart glasses. For power users and early adopters, $799 is a steep entry point, but it delivers the first wearable interface that genuinely feels discreet.

Strategically, Meta is desperate to escape its reliance on Apple and Google. By putting millions of conversational AI frames onto faces, it gains its own hardware footprint.

However, there is an obvious vulnerability. When Apple and Google inevitably release their own lightweight smart glasses, they will enjoy deep, native OS integration that Meta simply cannot match on a paired phone. For now, Meta is capitalizing on being first to market with real tech you can actually buy, betting that neural input will hook consumers before its rivals catch up.