Meta is reportedly preparing a new slate of smart glasses that are ditching those pesky cameras.

The News

Zuckerberg previously teased a pair of smart glasses in May alongside the official announcement of Connect’s September dates.

Now, according to a report from The Information, those may be a new class of camera-less smart glasses, slated to ship this Fall.

Internally codenamed ‘Luna’, the glasses are expected to be unveiled at Meta’s Connect developer conference, taking place September 23-24, which is also expected to be the venue for the unveiling of its slim and light mixed reality glasses, Project Phoenix.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the move appears to be a direct reaction to public perception of its current smart glasses lineup, which has seen heightened scrutiny amid wider privacy concerns.

Instead of cameras, Luna is said to include six onboard microphones so users can talk with Meta AI in addition to its consumer AI agent, Muse.

The report also maintains Luna has a quick action button on the side to activate Meta AI, in addition to speakers built into the glasses’ temple arms, which will be notably slimmer than other models.

Meta currently sells a variety of smart glasses as a part of its collaboration with EssilorLuxottica, including a number of Ray-Ban and Oakey frames, as well as its own Meta Glasses house brand frames. The company also sells its Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, which include a single color heads-up display embedded in the right lens—all of which include outward-facing cameras.

In Meta’s mandatory v26 update, its fleet of smart glasses received what many considered a long overdue hardware check: if the capture LED has been physically removed or damaged, the camera would be disabled, closing a loophole that let users drill out the privacy light to keep recording while hiding the recording indicator.

The move comes amid growing scrutiny over smart glasses privacy, including new legislation in number of US states and cities, such as New York state and Philadelphia. The company was also involved in a class-action lawsuit alleging Meta sent captured footage to a Kenya-based subcontractor for AI training.

Notably, other companies are now producing competitors to Meta’s slate of smart glasses, including Google’s Android XR hardware partners Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.

My Take

Provided the report is true, I don’t think Meta is effectively trying to put the cat back in the bag here with the release of camera-less glasses, partly because it doesn’t make sense in the long term.

The company trains its AI on user data, and having millions of cameras feeding that AI will only help inform their upcoming AR platform, which the company (and the industry at large) sees as its most important consumer segment.

AR glasses need outward-facing sensors, so I don’t really see this as Meta ‘putting the cat back in the bag’, so to speak.

To me, Meta’s choice makes sense from two real perspectives. They can serve the outwardly surveillance conscious user and the camera glasses wearers alike. It also likely will allow them to reduce overall costs, something they’ve already done by making their own Ray-Ban-less Meta Glasses house brand.

Meta isn’t only rumored to unveil its next-gen mixed reality headset next week, but also a photorealistic “hologram-like” call function using its latest avatars.

Images of Meta’s upcoming Project Phoenix headset have already leaked ahead of Meta’s Connect developer conference next week, which strongly suggests we’ll be getting an unveiling there, taking place September 23-24.

Now, The Information reports that Meta is preparing a major demo of Project Phoenix which includes “hologram-like video calls.”

The demo is expected to use an advanced version of its photorealistic Codec Avatars, which the company has been working on since 2015.

Citing a person familiar with the matter, the report maintains Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Andrew Bosworth are expected to unveil the avatar call experience live during the keynote speech at Connect.

It’s uncertain whether the unveiling will mean to a full commercial launch of Codec Avatars, or simply a peek at in-progress research like in years prior.

When it does though, Codec Avatars have a good chance at putting Meta more on equal footing with Apple’s own Personas avatars, which are considered some of the most accurate and immersive.

For years, the company’s avatars have been decidedly cartoony, which was largely in service of its metaverse ambitions, which the company has since deemphasized in a pivot towards AI and smart wearables.

Project Phoenix ostensibly marks the next phase for Meta’s XR ambitions, serving up a slim and light mixed reality headset that tethers to a pocketable compute puck, effectively offloading a large portion of the weight from the user’s head and increasing long-term comfort.

---

We’ll be at Connect 2026 next week, so check back soon for all things VR and AR to come from one of the industry’s most important conferences.

TikTok parent ByteDance is reportedly preparing an AI model that could let you create real-time spatial videos similar to Google Genie.

According to a Bloomberg report, ByteDance is readying an AI model dedicated to creating real-time spatial videos, which the company hopes will act as a “flywheel” to its various companies, including video streaming giant TikTok and its XR hardware subsidiary, Pico Interactive.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report maintains founder Zhang Yiming is personally overseeing the development as it nears launch as soon as next month.

The AI model is thought to work similar to Google’s Genie, which not only generates interactive virtual environments in real-time, but also can simulate physical environments for AI agents.

Notably, Zhang reportedly sees the tech as a major component linking the company’s existing AI models and cloud computing resources with its content platforms and XR headset subsidiary, Pico Interactive.

The report maintains the model is being built on Seedance, the company’s AI model for generating cinematic videos.

There’s no word on timing outside of that “as soon as next month” window, however Pico delayed the reveal of its upcoming Apple Vision Pro competitor, Space Pro, due to “spend[ing] more time on a major upgrade to the software experience.”

It’s unclear whether ByteDance’s real-time spatial video model is the main reasoning behind the delay, or something else.

Speculatively speaking, Pico may also be facing issues as Valve upcoming Steam Frame standalone headset, which is primarily due to the ongoing global component shortage—seeing RAM, storage, and reportedly also now Qualcomm SoCs prices skyrocket.

The company says it will unveil Pico Space Pro sometime in Q4, so we’re hoping to learn more soon, as Q4 is due to officially start October 1st.

Pico’s upcoming Apple Vision Pro competitor, Space Pro, was initially meant to debut earlier this month, although the ByteDance subsidiary cancelled the event and postponed its reveal and release date. Now, the company’s next flagship standalone XR headset just cleared the FCC.

Previously known as ‘Project Swan’, Pico Space Pro has now surfaced in FCC filings, which is typically one of the last hurdles before a company can commercialize electronics in the US. The news was first reported by UploadVR.

At the event, which was supposed to take place on September 2nd in Beijing, we were hoping to see a more complete spec sheet, as well as learn the price and release date. That said, much is already known about the device, which is referred to in the filings as a ‘Mixed Reality Computer’.

Space Pro is set to include microOLED displays boasting 4,000 pixels per inch (PPI), an average ~40 pixels per degree (PPD), and a dual-chip architecture: a custom XR silicon for perception and imaging (claimed ~12 ms perception latency) and separate flagship SoC with “more than 2× CPU and GPU performance vs XR2 Gen 2.”

Pico hasn’t specified exactly when it plans on rescheduling Space Pro’s reveal, although the company says we should expect launch sometime in Q4 2026.

Although the company maintains the delay was to “spend more time on a major upgrade to the software experience,” the timing suggests Space Pro may also be affected by the global component shortage, which has not only seen RAM and storage prices skyrocket, reportedly now Qualcomm SoCs too.

As it is, Pico seems to be taking a slower, more deliberate approach to launch though. When it cancelled the device’s reveal (just one week before the actual event), the company announced it was instead expanding its ‘Global Early Access Program’ closed beta to a number of hand-picked testers, which includes sending pre-production units and software to applicants.

Pico Space Pro isn’t only set to compete against Apple Vision Pro, but also Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset—the first to run Google’s Android XR processing system—in addition to Valve’s Steam Frame, which still doesn’t have a price or release.

China-based projector manufacturer XGIMI launched a crowdfunding campaign in June for its first smart glasses, MemoMind One, which is banking on consumer interest in display-clad smart glasses that don’t contain cameras. Now the campaign has reached $1 million, giving the segment anther early vote of confidence.

The News

MemoMind One quickly surpassed its lowball fund goal of $80,000 HKD (~$10,000 USD) when the Kickstarter launched on June 28th, going on to secure $500,000 in less than a week after launch. Now the project just topped $1 million with 20 days left in the campaign, which closes on August 28th.

If you haven’t followed its progress, MemoMind One was first shown at CES 2026 in Las Vegas in January, pitching a pair of smart glasses that don’t include any sort of camera, instead sporting dual green micro-LED displays (2,000 nits), integrated audio, and a host of AI-assisted actions, such as real-time translation, note taking, contextual assistance, and navigation.

Notably, MemoMind One is positioning itself as one of the least expensive display smart glasses on the market, with pricing starting at $400 for the Standard Edition of all stylings: Nomad, Gotham and Archive. There is also the option to add prescription lenses ($500) and a Custom Edition with multiple colorways starting at $450, all of which are expected to ship in August 2026.

XGIMI hasn’t released any sort of stretch goals, as it appears the campaign is more oriented toward pre-orders. You can learn more about it on MemoMind One’s Kickstarter here.

My Take

This is a bit of a casual rehash of my original take when MemoMind One reached the $500,000 mark, but I’ll save you click with this (slightly) condensed version.

If MemoMind One’s campaign is any indication, not having an onboard camera is a much stronger marketing position than you might think, partly due to blowback Meta is getting from its own display-less camera smart glasses right now.

Until recently, Meta hasn’t properly kept creepers from drilling out capture LEDs, or otherwise vaunting the system by other means. It’s too early to tell since there are no major competitors yet, but Meta may have ‘poisoned the well’ somewhat.

While MemoMind isn’t the first to claim camera-less display smart glasses as a unique marketing proposition, it is doing it at a cheaper price than the main competition: Even Realities G2, which are priced at $600 before adding prescription lenses.

That said, I’m not certain ‘display only’ smart glasses will ever be truly massive; cameras and displays are difficult to run together in today’s power and compute constraints, so it seems more like a temporary division that’s being fashioned into a marketable segment. I’ll be putting those assumptions to the test when I go in for a long-term hands-on with MemoMind One, so check back soon.