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Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have officially crossed the threshold from tech curiosity to mass-market product. With more than 7 million pairs sold in 2025, the device now commands over 80% of the global smart glasses market. That figure is more than three times the total units moved in 2023 and 2024 combined.
The glasses look like regular Ray-Bans. They also happen to have a camera, open-ear speakers, and Meta’s AI assistant baked in.
The numbers behind the breakout
EssilorLuxottica, the eyewear giant partnering with Meta on the product, reported that smart glasses revenue nearly doubled year-over-year by Q2 2026.
Mark Zuckerberg has called smart glasses one of the fastest-growing categories in consumer electronics history.
The product line has also diversified, now including Oakley-branded variants and newer display-equipped iterations, though the rollout of certain models outside the U.S. has been hampered by supply chain constraints driven by unprecedented domestic demand.
The privacy problem that won’t go away
As adoption has surged, so have reports of people using the glasses to secretly record others. The devices include a small LED indicator light that’s supposed to signal when the camera is active, but reports have surfaced showing that the LED can potentially be circumvented or is simply too small to notice in many real-world situations.
Advocacy groups have zeroed in on several specific risks. Non-consensual recording tops the list, but concerns also extend to what happens after footage is captured. Reports indicate that human moderators review some user-shared video content, raising questions about data handling and the potential for sensitive footage to be seen by Meta employees or contractors.
Revelations of privacy circumventions and policies governing data use for AI training have perpetuated intense debates regarding the broader societal implications of wearable surveillance technology.
Meta’s balancing act
Meta has acknowledged the need for additional privacy controls, though the company faces a genuinely difficult engineering and design challenge. Making the recording indicator more prominent could undermine the sleek aesthetic that makes the glasses appealing in the first place.
For Meta’s stock, the smart glasses line represents a rare bright spot in the company’s hardware ambitions. The Reality Labs division has historically been a financial black hole, losing tens of billions over the past several years.
The competitive landscape is shifting in response. Apple, Google, and several Chinese manufacturers are reportedly developing their own smart eyewear products, drawn by the market validation Meta has provided. But catching up with an 80%-plus market share leader that has a locked-in partnership with the world’s largest eyewear company is easier said than done.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
English (US) ·