5 Meta Ray-Ban Upgrades I Want to See on September 17

The hype continues to build around the arrival of Meta's futuristic Hypernova (a.k.a. Celeste) smart glasses, which will reportedly add a small heads-up display in one eye and a neural wristband (Ceres) to control the interface. These will reportedly cost around $800 and will be announced at Meta Connect on September 17. Some have even started calling these the next version of the current Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. However, both Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Andrew Bosworth have been teasing that Meta will release multiple products in the smart glasses space this fall.

And the CEO of EssilorLuxotica (maker of Ray-Bans), Francesco Milleri, said in early 2025 that over 2 million units of Meta Ray-Bans had already been sold and that the company was preparing to scale up to sell 10 million units annually by the end of 2026. All of that points to an upgraded version of the $300 to $400 audio-only Meta Ray-Bans coming this fall -- and being announced alongside the future-oriented Hypernova glasses at Meta Connect.

I'll be at Meta Connect in person on September 17 to see and demo everything Meta unveils. Here is the list of practical upgrades that would make Meta's AI glasses even more useful and usable:

• Battery Life Upgrade: The current Meta Ray-Bans are officially rated for four hours of battery life. However, if you turn off the always-on listening for the "Hey Meta" prompt (and long-press the right stem to activate it instead), you can increase that pretty significantly. But once you start taking a bunch of photos and recording multiple videos, the battery can completely drain in as little as one to two hours.
• Horizontal Photo and Video Capture: The Meta Ray-Bans' most pleasant surprise when they launched in 2023 turned out to be the viability of the photos and videos -- which ended up being the equivalent of a smartphone camera from 3-4 years earlier. However, it only shoots in vertical / portrait mode. What the next Meta Ray-Bans need is the option to shoot horizontal photos and videos.
• Improved Camera Sensor: The camera on the Meta Ray-Bans is 12MP and shoots photos in a 3x4 aspect ratio with a resolution of 3024 x 4032 pixels. It captures video at roughly 1080p quality and a resolution around 1376 x 1840. However, phone cameras have taken some big leaps forward in the past two years. And those of us who have taken lots of photos and videos on the Meta Ray-Bans have run into the limitations of the older camera sensor.
• Photo and Video Transfer Upgrade: One of the most awkward usability challenges with the Meta Ray-Bans has been transferring the photos and videos you capture on the glasses to your phone. You have to have your phone connect to the glasses as your Wi-Fi connection, and then it makes the file transfer and disconnects.
• Additional Features: There are other things I'd love to see in the next version of the audio-only Meta Ray-Bans -- like a waterproofing upgrade from IPX4, support for more languages in Live Translation, a charging option for when you're still wearing the glasses, and the option to use a virtual assistant to record calls and meetings and generate notes and summaries.

But if Meta were to integrate these five features mentioned above into their next generation of audio smart glasses, then I suspect they'd find a lot more than 10 million people who are interested in wearing them. You can preorder the Oakley Meta smart glasses right now - why they're worth it