Meta’s Smart Glasses: The Next iPhone of Tech Disruption?

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The New Wave of Smart Glasses: Features and Capabilities

Meta’s latest smart glasses pack a suite of powerful features into a stylish Ray-Ban frame. Co-developed with EssilorLuxottica (Ray-Ban’s parent company), the new Ray-Ban | Meta smart glasses look nearly indistinguishable from classic sunglasses, but house cutting-edge tech inside. Key capabilities include:

• Hands-Free Photo & Video Capture: A built-in 12 MP ultra-wide camera lets users snap photos or record short first-person videos (up to ~60 seconds at 1080p) simply by tapping or using voice commands. This enables spontaneous, point-of-view capture – whether you’re sightseeing or attending a concert – without fumbling for a phone. The glasses can even livestream your perspective directly to Facebook or Instagram, turning the wearer into a roving broadcaster. An LED indicator light notifies others when you’re recording, although it can be hard to spot in bright conditions.
• Built-in Audio & Communication: Discreet open-ear speakers and microphones are integrated into the temples, allowing you to take calls, listen to music, and interact with voice assistants without earbuds. You can send and receive messages hands-free via WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS, and more by speaking or using gestures. For example, saying “Hey Meta, send a message to Alex” will transcribe and send your words as a text. The open-ear design keeps your ears free – you hear your audio, while those around you barely notice it.
• Meta AI Assistant: Meta’s glasses come with an onboard AI voice assistant (“Meta AI”) that can answer questions, provide information, and even analyze what the camera sees. By saying “Hey Meta…,” wearers can query virtually anything and get a spoken answer – no phone needed. Notably, new AI vision features let the glasses recognize surroundings: you might ask “What landmark am I looking at?” or “Does this sauce go with the pasta recipe?” and get instant insights based on the live camera view. Meta is also rolling out real-time speech translation – if someone speaks to you in French, the glasses can translate and play the English translation through the speakers, breaking language barriers on the fly. Additionally, the AI can help “remember” things (e.g. note where you parked your car or set a future reminder) so you can offload little mental tasks to your wearable.
• Augmented Reality Displays: While the standard Ray-Ban Meta glasses rely on audio and your smartphone for feedback, Meta’s newest premium model adds a heads-up display in the right lens. Dubbed the Ray-Ban Meta “Display” glasses, this $799 model projects a 600×600 pixel color image into your field of view. The effect is like a floating screen for your eye – you can see turn-by-turn directions, message notifications, photo previews, or even a friend’s video call feed without looking down at a phone. Not true full-field AR, it appears as a small HUD when activated (and stays invisible to others around you, thanks to only ~2% light leakage). This display model comes with a Neural Band wrist controller that reads subtle electric signals from your arm muscles to let you control the interface with slight finger gestures – for example, pinching your fingers to click, or swiping with a thumb motion to scroll. The result is that you can navigate menus or reply to messages silently and invisibly, with your hand at your side. This kind of minimal-friction interface is a big step toward seamless AR interaction.
• Style and Comfort: A huge factor in Meta’s design is wearability. These glasses come in iconic Ray-Ban styles (Wayfarer and a round “Headliner” frame) with multiple colors, and can be fitted with prescription lenses. The tech is packed into a slim package ~50–70 g in weight – slightly heavier than ordinary sunglasses but still comfortable for all-day use. The newest frames have improved ergonomics (e.g. universal-fit nose bridges and spring hinges that flex for wider faces) to appeal to a broad user base. Crucially, they look cool rather than geeky, addressing the style stigma that hurt earlier smart glasses. Meta’s partnership with a fashion eyewear leader is intentional: as one analyst noted, smart glasses must be “everyday, non-cumbersome” products that people feel good wearing in public. By nailing the aesthetics, Meta is lowering one barrier to adoption that plagued devices like Google Glass.
• Battery and Connectivity: The Ray-Ban Meta glasses offer around 4–6 hours of mixed use on a charge, depending on features used. The included charging case (it looks like a chunky glasses case) can top the glasses up multiple times, for ~30–36 hours total before you find an outlet. The glasses pair with your smartphone via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, offloading heavy processing to the phone/cloud when needed (especially for AI tasks and video streaming). They have 32 GB of onboard storage – enough for roughly 500 photos or 100 short videos – so you can capture media without immediate offloading. All in all, Meta’s smart glasses bring together cameras, audio, connectivity, and AI into a hands-free wearable package that simply didn’t exist a few years ago.

From iPhone 2007 to Smart Glasses 2025: A Revolution Revisited

To understand why these glasses could be “the next iPhone,” it’s worth recalling what made the original iPhone (2007) so disruptive. Apple’s iPhone combined three previously separate devices – a phone, a music player, and an Internet communicator – into one sleek multitouch handset. It redefined the smartphone with a finger-friendly touch screen (eliminating the physical keyboard common on BlackBerry and Nokia phones) and later introduced the App Store, unleashing an ecosystem of mobile apps that could do virtually anything. The iPhone transformed the phone from a simple communication tool into a mobile computer for everything – email, web browsing, GPS navigation, photography, social media, entertainment, and beyond. In short, it put the internet in everyone’s pocket, changing the way we access information and communicate on a daily basis. Smartphones quickly went from a luxury to a necessity; within a decade of the iPhone’s debut, billions of people around the world were online and connected through mobile apps. The cultural impact was immense – smartphones shifted how we work, socialize, and live, much as the personal computer did a generation prior.

The parallel to smart glasses is this: just as the iPhone moved computing from the desk to the palm of your hand, AR smart glasses aim to move computing from the palm to a heads-up, eyes-forward experience. This represents another leap in how we interface with technology. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg often frames it as reclaiming the real-world presence that smartphones have partially taken away. “The promise of glasses is to preserve this sense of presence you have with other people,” Zuckerberg says – instead of staring down at a phone screen, smart glasses could let us stay engaged with the world and people around us while still tapping into digital tools. In essence, it could usher in a post-smartphone era where our primary gateway to the digital world is no longer a handheld glass rectangle, but a pair of stylish specs.

Importantly, Meta’s smart glasses are not yet as game-changing as the 2007 iPhone – the technology is still maturing. But many observers see a similar trajectory. Just as early smartphones (even before the iPhone) were clunky and niche, early smart glasses (like Google Glass in 2013 or Snap Spectacles) were limited and a bit ahead of their time. Meta’s latest glasses, however, are being hailed as a turning point – the first truly wearable, mass-market smart glasses that get enough right to hint at a coming revolution. A senior tech reviewer who was once a glasses skeptic now calls Meta’s $299–$379 Ray-Ban Meta glasses “a turning point” after seeing features like real-time translations and AI in action. Comparisons are being drawn to how the iPhone slowly but surely won over consumers by adding capabilities and polish each generation. Meta is likewise iterating rapidly: the second-gen Ray-Ban Meta (2023) fixed many issues of the first-gen (2021) – improving camera quality, audio, and adding the AI smarts – and now the newest models with displays push the envelope further. Tech insiders speculate that a true “iPhone moment” for AR glasses may occur in the next few product cycles, as capabilities expand and more players (including Apple and Google) enter the arena.

Reimagining Interaction: What Smart Glasses Mean for Daily Life

If smart glasses do take off, they have the potential to redefine everyday digital interaction in profound ways. Consider how these devices could change common activities:

• Communication Without Distraction: Instead of diverting your gaze to a phone for every text or notification, messages can discreetly appear in your field of view (or be read into your ear) via the glasses. You can respond by dictating to the AI or tapping a finger on your Neural Band, all while maintaining eye contact with the people around you. This ambient style of communication could make digital messaging feel more like a natural extension of your conversation, rather than a disruption. In fact, Meta’s glasses already allow users to take video calls where you see the caller floating in your vision, and they see from your point of view – an almost sci-fi experience that one tester said made them feel like a secret agent. Such innovations hint at a future where remote communication is more seamless and immersive than a flat video chat on a phone screen.
• Augmented Information at a Glance: With AR-capable glasses, digital content can be contextually overlaid onto the real world. Imagine walking down the street and having navigation directions appear as arrows on the sidewalk ahead of you, or restaurant ratings hovering next to each storefront. Meta’s current Display glasses already show directional prompts and map cues in one eye for navigation. The glasses’ AI can identify what you’re looking at – say a famous painting or landmark – and whisper details or history into your ear (or pop up an info card in the lens). This could turn everyday life into an interactive tour: education, travel, and exploration become richer when background info is available on-demand without pulling out a device. One early example is the glasses’ museum demo – a wearer snapped a photo of an Andy Warhol artwork, and Meta’s AI assistant not only described it but pulled up related images and facts in the heads-up display. Such use cases blur the line between the digital and physical, enhancing how we learn from and interact with our surroundings.
• Hands-Free Productivity and Utility: Think about job scenarios or chores where having both hands free while accessing information is a game-changer. With smart glasses, an engineer fixing machinery could see diagrams or live sensor data in their view while working with their hands. A parent cooking dinner could follow a recipe via a floating screen, scrolling ingredients with a subtle finger gesture, never having to touch a phone with messy hands. Meta has even showcased how you can compose text silently by just moving your fingers – their Neural Band can pick up electrical signals as you trace letters on a surface, letting you send a text by “air-writing” it. This opens doors for new modes of productivity where one can input and retrieve information in parallel with physical tasks. Early adopters are already using the Ray-Ban Meta glasses to take meeting notes by voice or to transcribe conversations in real time, relying on the AI to summarize or highlight key points later. Over time, as the ecosystem grows, we could see a wave of apps that leverage the always-ready camera and sensors – from fitness coaches that give you real-time form feedback, to personal AI assistants that recognize people you’ve met and discreetly remind you of their name and context (no more awkward “I know I’ve met you before…” moments).
• Lifelogging and Sharing Experiences: Just as smartphones turned everyone into casual photographers and videographers, smart glasses could amplify the trend of lifelogging – automatically capturing moments of your day. Meta’s glasses make capturing a memory as easy as a quick tap or voice command (“Hey Meta, take a photo”), which means you can record from a first-person perspective without stepping out of the moment. This has obvious appeal for travel vlogging, sports, or just preserving precious personal moments (your child’s first steps, for instance) hands-free. Coupled with AI, the glasses might even catalog these moments for you – organizing snapshots by context, creating auto-edited “daily recap” videos, etc. – essentially a visual diary. Sharing is instantaneous too: you can stream what you see or send a clip straight from the glasses to a friend. This immediacy of sharing your perspective might redefine social media; it’s more immersive than a phone camera and closer to letting someone “walk in your shoes” for a moment. Of course, it raises new privacy questions (which we’ll address below), but the allure of frictionless capture and sharing is strong, especially for younger generations accustomed to documenting life on Snapchat or Instagram.

In sum, Meta’s smart glasses promise a form of ubiquitous computing where digital assistance is available any time, anywhere, without the clunky intermediaries of pocket devices or keyboards. Tech visionaries often call this the shift to “ambient” or “perceptual” computing – the technology fades into the background, and you simply act and receive context-aware help. Zuckerberg pitches it as a kind of personal AI-enhancement: “Glasses are the ideal form factor for personal superintelligence,” he said at Meta’s latest Connect conference, because they let you stay present in the moment while giving you instant access to knowledge and tools that “make you smarter, help you communicate better, improve your memory, improve your senses, and more”. It’s a bold claim, but it encapsulates why many believe smart glasses could fundamentally change how we engage with technology – in the same way smartphones did, by making computing more personal and integrated into our lives.

Hurdles Ahead: Privacy, Price, and the Path to Adoption

Before we crown smart glasses as the next iPhone, there are significant barriers to mainstream adoption that Meta and others in the field must overcome:

• Privacy and Social Acceptance: Perhaps the thorniest issue is the potential for smart glasses to be used as surveillance devices. The idea that anyone wearing these could be recording or even running facial recognition on people around them raises deep privacy concerns. We’ve seen this play out before – Google Glass faced public backlash a decade ago, with some early users derogatorily labeled “Glassholes” for wearing a camera on their face. Meta is keenly aware of this history. The Ray-Ban glasses do have a recording indicator light, and Meta’s user policies urge wearers to respect others’ privacy (e.g. to give an obvious verbal cue when recording). However, these measures aren’t foolproof. Tests found the tiny white recording LED is easy to miss, especially in daylight or busy environments. And a determined bad actor could conceivably cover the light or use the glasses in ways that violate privacy. In fact, a recent demo by two college students showed how off-the-shelf tech could leverage Meta’s glasses for real-time “doxxing” – they live-streamed footage from the glasses to a laptop that ran facial recognition, pulled up personal data from public databases, and fed info (like someone’s name and address) back to the user, all without the subject knowing. This experiment, while not an official feature, underscores the fears that wearable cameras plus AI could enable new forms of intrusion. On the flip side, norms around public recording have shifted in the smartphone era – people are filmed by others’ phones all the time in public. Yet, glasses make it far more discreet, which is a double-edged sword: great for user convenience, but worrying for bystanders. Meta is trying to mitigate this by making the glasses look normal (so they don’t stigmatize the wearer) while also educating users on “wearable etiquette”. It’s a delicate balance. Widespread adoption may depend on society developing new etiquette and perhaps regulations (for example, some venues might ban smart glasses as they once did with Google Glass). Until people at large feel comfortable with the device in social settings, privacy concerns will continue to be a major hurdle.
• Price and Accessibility: Another immediate barrier is cost. The latest Ray-Ban Meta glasses start at $299–$379 for the core models without displays, and jump to $799 for the high-end Display version with AR features. By comparison, smartphones can be had at many price points (though flagship iPhones themselves now cost $800–$1200). For a new product category, these prices may deter average consumers – especially if the value proposition isn’t yet crystal clear. Industry analysts have noted that the $800 AR glasses, in particular, are likely to see limited early sales beyond tech enthusiasts. Meta seems to be aware of this; it’s treating the current high-end model as a stepping stone, gauging interest and refining the tech for future, more advanced versions (Meta is already working on a next-gen “Orion” AR glasses targeted for 2027 launch). The company’s plan to scale up production to 10 million units per year by 2026 could also help bring costs down over time. For now, though, smart glasses remain a pricey accessory, and convincing millions of users to buy one in addition to their existing phone (which the glasses currently still depend on) will be a challenge. We may need to see either prices come down, carrier subsidies (as happened with smartphones), or must-have killer apps to drive mass adoption despite the cost.
• Technical Limitations: Today’s smart glasses, while impressive, still have technical constraints that could impede usability. Battery life is one: ~6 hours is fine for intermittent use but might not cover a full day of heavy use, meaning users must charge the glasses (or swap to clear lenses) at some point daily. The display on the AR model, while bright, has a limited 20-degree field of view – it’s useful for notifications and glanceable info, but it’s not the immersive holographic AR of science fiction (you won’t be seeing virtual objects seamlessly integrated throughout your vision just yet). Computing power is another factor; the glasses rely on a phone for many tasks, and on-device AI is relatively basic (most AI queries are sent to the cloud). There’s also the question of comfort – 70 g is lightweight, but some users might still feel fatigue wearing a computer on their face for 10+ hours. Early feedback on Meta’s glasses has been positive in comfort, but it’s a very subjective aspect. Durability and safety also come up: these have small electronics and batteries on your face, so concerns about what happens if a battery overheats or if they get wet (Meta’s are water-resistant to an extent, but not waterproof) will need to be addressed for carefree daily wear. These limitations will likely diminish with each hardware iteration (as components get more efficient and AR displays improve), but in the near term they may make some consumers hold off, adopting a “wait and see” approach.
• App Ecosystem and Use Cases: One driving force behind the iPhone’s success was the rich ecosystem of third-party apps that emerged – delivering value and functionalities Apple alone couldn’t foresee. For smart glasses to be similarly transformative, they will need a robust developer ecosystem creating compelling AR and AI experiences for the platform. At present, Meta’s glasses are fairly closed – they primarily run Meta’s own software (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp integrations, Meta’s AI) and a handful of partner apps (e.g. Spotify for music, Outlook for audio notifications). Opening the platform to more developers and creators will be crucial so that new use cases can flourish – whether it’s AR gaming, fitness, education, enterprise tools, or things we haven’t imagined yet. Meta has signaled plans to treat the glasses as a “shared platform” and is in it for the long haul (its partnership with Ray-Ban is through at least 2030). However, it faces a catch-22: big developer investment might wait until there’s a sizable user base, but many mainstream users will wait to buy until there are lots of apps and content. Meta is partly seeding this by integrating killer features itself (camera, translator, assistant) to make the glasses immediately useful out-of-the-box. Still, achieving an “App Store moment” for smart glasses might take a few generations. The company’s hefty spending (Reality Labs has poured over $70 billion into AR/VR research in recent years) indicates they are trying to accelerate this timeline. If Meta can prove the market by selling a few million units (they’ve sold about 2 million pairs as of early 2025), it might entice more developers to get onboard, which in turn attracts more users – the classic virtuous cycle of platform adoption.
• Public Perception and Cultural Barriers: Beyond privacy, there’s a broader cultural leap in going from using a smartphone (which is now second nature) to wearing glasses as a computing interface. People who already wear glasses might adapt more easily, but those who don’t might be hesitant to sport eyewear daily just for tech’s sake. The styling helps – making them look like fashion accessories – but there may remain a stigma or skepticism (“Do I really need these?”). Additionally, early adopters aside, many people simply might not see the need yet. Smartphones and smartwatches fulfill most digital needs quite well; smart glasses currently solve problems people didn’t know they had (like needing to text hands-free while carrying groceries, or wanting to live-caption a conversation in real time). It will take education and time for the broader public to understand and embrace the new possibilities. We’ve seen similar challenges with earlier wearables – e.g., Bluetooth earpieces were once seen as odd, but now AirPods are ubiquitous and socially accepted, due in part to Apple’s savvy marketing and design. Meta is attempting a similar mainstream push: it even bought Super Bowl ad slots to promote Ray-Ban Stories and Meta glasses, trying to position them as the next cool consumer gadget. Overcoming the “coolness” factor is non-trivial; tech history is littered with great inventions that failed to catch on due to social factors. The key will be patience, refinement, and finding the right value proposition that makes smart glasses feel indispensable. Meta’s leadership has openly said this is a long-term journey – one that could take most of this decade to unfold.

The Road to Mainstream: Trends Fueling the Glasses Revolution

Despite the challenges, several broader trends suggest that Meta’s smart glasses – or similar AR wearables – are on a trajectory that could indeed make them “the next iPhone” over the coming years:

• Big Tech is All In on AR: Meta isn’t the only player betting on glasses. Apple, which revolutionized smartphones, is heavily invested in augmented reality as the next paradigm. CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly stated his belief that AR is “a big idea like the smartphone”, one that could be used by everyone and improve many lives. Apple’s first step in this direction was the Vision Pro (a high-end AR/VR headset announced in 2023), and rumor has it they are working toward true AR glasses later this decade. Google is likewise working on AR eyewear (building on its Google Glass lessons and its acquisition of smart-glass maker North), and Microsoft has its enterprise-focused HoloLens. Snap has released Spectacles prototypes for AR. In short, the entire industry sees wearable AR as the next major platform and are pouring R&D resources into it. This consensus is reminiscent of how, post-iPhone, every tech giant pivoted to mobile. As a result, advancements are accelerating – from display micro-projectors, to sensors, to battery tech – all moving us closer to viable all-day AR glasses. The competition also means consumers will have choices, and the concept of smart glasses will become more familiar and accepted as multiple brands evangelize it.
• Wearable Tech Momentum: Consumers are increasingly comfortable with wearables. A decade ago, few people wore fitness trackers or voice assistants; now devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and wireless earbuds are mainstream. This trend conditions the market for glasses – essentially another wearable – especially as people get used to hands-free interactions (e.g., talking to Siri/Alexa, using AirPods for calls and audio throughout the day, etc.). The more we normalize ubiquitous tech on our bodies, the less of a leap it is to go from wrist or ear to eyes. Moreover, wearables have shown that if you deliver useful functionality in a convenient form, adoption can skyrocket (Apple Watch went from novelty to tens of millions of users once its health features and notifications proved their worth). Smart glasses are poised to piggyback on this by offering unique value (camera, AR content) that other wearables can’t. Market research reflects this optimism: IDC projects worldwide shipments of AR/VR headsets and smart glasses will grow nearly 40% in 2025, reaching about 14.3 million units that year. While that’s still modest compared to phones, it’s rapid growth for a nascent category. Some industry forecasts predict that by 2030, the AR glasses market could be worth anywhere from $8 billion up to $50+ billion globally, depending on how quickly technology and adoption ramp up. In other words, many analysts see an exponential growth curve once the product-market fit clicks, similar to the smartphone boom in the late 2000s.
• Convergence of AR and the Metaverse Vision: When Facebook rebranded as “Meta” in 2021, it signaled a strategic pivot to the metaverse – a vision of interconnected virtual and augmented experiences. While the metaverse hype initially focused on VR worlds, it’s increasingly clear that AR glasses could be the more practical gateway to that vision for most people. Instead of isolating yourself in VR, glasses can layer the metaverse onto the real world – whether it’s holographic avatars sitting across from you, AR games playing out in your living room, or simply persistent digital info attached to places and objects. Meta’s smart glasses are still early steps, but the long-term roadmap (as hinted by their Orion prototype) is full AR with 3D visuals. Achieving that is often likened to the smartphone journey from the clunky PDAs of the 90s to the sleek iPhone. Crucially, AI and cloud advancements are coming at the same time, which supercharge the utility of AR. The glasses are launching in an era of generative AI assistants and ever-faster mobile networks (5G and soon 6G) – meaning the hardware on your face can remain lightweight while tapping virtually limitless computing power online. Mark Zuckerberg even used the term “superintelligence” when describing what AI in glasses could offer, painting it as a personal AI sidekick available at all times. This convergence of AR and AI is sometimes called contextual computing – your device understands context (where you are, what you’re doing, who/what you’re looking at) and provides relevant assistance. Many tech leaders believe this will define the next decade of innovation. It’s telling that Zuckerberg, in interviews, has expressed his goal to “kill the smartphone” – not out of spite for phones, but because he envisions a future where glasses and wearables replace many of the functions phones serve today. That kind of disruption would indeed be on par with the iPhone’s impact, essentially shifting the dominant personal computing paradigm from one device to another.
• Early Market Traction: While still early, Meta has seen promising uptake of its glasses. By February 2025, Meta’s partnership with Ray-Ban had already sold over 2 million pairs of smart glasses since the late-2023 launch of the new models. The CEO of EssilorLuxottica (Ray-Ban’s parent) stated they are gearing up to produce 10 million units per year by 2026 to meet expected demand. To put that in perspective, those figures are nowhere near smartphone volumes (Apple sells 200+ million iPhones a year) – but for a totally new category, a million users here, a million there, starts to indicate that this is more than just a fringe gadget. We’re likely in the early adopter phase (tech enthusiasts, influencers, certain professionals), akin to where smartphones were in say 2005. The real inflection could come when a must-have feature or app emerges that pulls in the mainstream. Meta is heavily marketing the glasses and integrating them deeply with popular social platforms, which could accelerate adoption among content creators and social media lovers. Additionally, specialized variants (like the new Oakley-branded sports glasses Meta just announced for athletes) show the strategy of targeting niche uses that can later broaden out. These are the same patterns we saw with smartphones (BlackBerry for business email, camera phones for photography buffs, etc., which all eventually converged into one device everyone needed). In short, all signs point to smart glasses being on the cusp of larger breakthroughs, even if they haven’t reached iPhone-level penetration just yet.

Conclusion: The Next Tech Frontier?

Meta’s smart glasses, with their mix of style and technology, offer a compelling glimpse of a future where our digital lives are even more seamlessly integrated into the real world. Calling them “the next iPhone” is admittedly hyperbolic – smartphones won’t disappear overnight, and significant technical and social challenges remain before glasses become as common as phones. However, the ingredients for disruption are in place. The device introduces a fundamentally new mode of interaction (always-available, heads-up information and recording), it’s backed by a robust ecosystem (one of the world’s largest tech companies and the leading eyewear brand), and it arrives at a moment when enabling technologies (AR displays, AI, batteries) have matured enough to make the concept viable.

Recall that the iPhone itself didn’t transform society in a single year; it took a combination of iterative improvements (3G networks, better cameras, third-party apps) and cultural shifts to reach ubiquity. Likewise, we can expect smart glasses to improve rapidly. Meta is already learning from real-world use and iterating – boosting battery life, refining the AI, adding features like the display and Neural Band that were science fiction only a few years ago. Competitors will bring their own innovations, pushing the medium forward. As Forrester analyst Mike Proulx noted, these early glasses might be analogous to the Apple Watch’s debut – an extension to our current devices – but their form factor is something we use every day, and if the benefits prove their worth, there is “a lot of runway” for them to gain market share in the coming years.

In many ways, the smartphone revolution paved the way for this next leap. We have come to expect constant connectivity, on-demand information, and a multitude of apps to manage our lives. Smart glasses aim to deliver that same breadth of digital utility in an even more natural, heads-up manner. If Meta and others can solve the remaining puzzles (ensuring privacy, reducing cost, and convincing the public of the glasses’ value), we may indeed look back on the 2020s as the dawn of the next paradigm of personal tech. The EssilorLuxottica CEO, whose company is making these devices, perhaps put it best: “A pair of eyeglasses will be the main digital platform addressing our daily needs”, he said, expressing confidence that over time, smart glasses will graduate from niche gadget to the center of our digital lives. It’s an ambitious vision – and one that would have sounded far-fetched before the iPhone era. But if you’re wearing your Ray-Bans while reading this, you might just be experiencing the start of that future firsthand.