This week, a new teaser hit the airwaves revealing how Meta is potenitally releasing a new designer AR smart glasses with partner Oakley; a seemingly natural evolution from Meta’s successful Ray Ban AR device, which is continuing to drive captial for Reality Labs-meaning the more recent Oakley partnership could be a another attempt to boost Meta XR profits with AR-lite consumer smart glasses.
In the announcement video description, Oakley notes, “The next evolution is coming on June 20,” meaning that this week, smart glasses fans may see a new variation of the Ray-Ban glasses, but with an Oakley spin.
Details on the device are incredibly slim. However, predictions towards Ray-Ban-style smart glasses are most likely on point if history proves a defining factor. Moreover, the smart glasses race is starting to deepen, most notably with Google’s AndriodXR vision, which sees that firm dip back into the technology category following its Google Glass hype of years past.
Dominating the Smart Glasses Market in the Age of AI
Meta’s Q1 2025 earnings call, which was released to the public, revealed key insights into its operations. Just as the firm moves towards AI and AR innovations, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the importance of smart glasses in its XR ecosystem.
He said at the time:
Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses have tripled in sales in the last year and people who have them are using them a lot. We’ve got some exciting new launches with our partner EssilorLuxottica later this year as well that should expand that category and add some new technological capabilities to the glasses.
Susan Li, CFO, supports this claim by pointing out that within the Meta Reality Labs segment, “Q1 revenue was $412 million, representing a 6% decline year-over-year due to lower sales of Meta Quest. This decline was partially offset by increased sales of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.”
Li also mentioned that Reality Labs’ expenses totalled $4.6 billion, an 8% increase compared to the previous year, primarily driven by higher employee compensation. Meanwhile, Reality Labs reported an operating loss of $4.2 billion. Historically, the Reality Labs segment has been unprofitable, but this trend appears to reflect a long-term investment in the future of computing and Meta’s innovation goals.
Li added:
Moving to Reality Labs. We’re seeing very strong traction with Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, with over 4x as many monthly actives as a year ago, and the number of people using voice commands is growing even faster as people use it to answer questions and control their glasses. This month, we fully rolled out live translations on Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses to all markets for English, French, Italian, and Spanish. Now, when you are speaking to someone in one of these languages, you’ll hear what they say in your preferred language through the glasses in real time.
Significant changes are expected in the XR space leading up to 2026. As these changes occur, we may see a shift in industry leadership. Meta will likely explore new opportunities to fund its XR division through collaborations with designer eyewear companies. While Meta could maintain its leading position, the competition is fierce.
