New Meta Ray-Bans leak with 2 major upgrades - now I'm even more excited for Connect

Meta launched the Oakley HSTN smart glasses earlier this year. Now it's preparing to launch several other pairs at Connect.

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Meta recently published a video trailer for its upcoming smart glasses, which are expected to be unveiled at Connect on Wednesday.
• The montage included clips of Meta Ray-Bans that have an HUD display and wristband controller.
• A new Oakley model based on the brand's Sphaera design was also leaked.

Did Meta just foil its biggest hardware announcement of 2025? Some would say yes, but it's not all doom and gloom in Menlo Park.

Meta Connect this week is expected to be a pivotal moment for the AI wearables industry, as the makers of the popular Ray-Ban smart glasses take the stage to unveil a succeeding model -- and maybe more. 

Unfortunately for the tech giant, Wednesday's biggest surprises may have just leaked to the public. A now unlisted YouTube video, first discovered by UploadVR, showcased an unreleased pair of "Ray-Ban Display" glasses and another based on Oakley's Sphaera design.

Also: What to expect from Meta Connect 2025 this week: Ray-Ban smart glasses, Hypernova, more

The wearables look as good as we expected, and fall in line with past reports of Meta pushing for a more advanced, wrist-band-controlled pair of smart glasses. If the execution of the Ray-Ban Display is as good as the trailer makes it out to be, there's more reason to be excited for Wednesday's keynote than not to be.

What's new with the Meta Ray-Ban Display? 

Meta/UploadVR

The current generation of Meta Ray-Bans has become one of the most transformative consumer products of the past two years. Content creators are building careers around the face-worn cameras, everyday users are using vision insurance to buy them, and even tech journalists (myself included) are reaching for these glasses over $1,000 cameras to capture video.

But the now two-year-old smart glasses are also showing their age, with recording capabilities, battery life, and their feature set being outmatched by new competitors in Rokid, Google, and, soon, possibly Samsung. Here's how Meta is leveling things up in 2025.

Also: 5 Meta Ray-Ban upgrades that have me truly hyped for September 17

First, the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses will feature a monocular HUD that projects navigation pathways, translations, messages, and exchanges with the Meta AI assistant. Based on the leaked video, the display is a static projection, meaning it won't magically anchor onto what's in front of you like an augmented reality headset would.

This isn't a bad thing, as there's less need for components like accelerometers, gyroscopes, or even LiDAR depth sensors, which would otherwise add to the bulkiness of the glasses. The more similar these are to traditional eyewear, the better.

Meta/UploadVR

Meta is also pitching its new Ray-Bans with a long-rumored EMG (electromyography) wristband. The company demoed the wearable technology during last year's Connect event, alongside its Orion prototype, and my CNET colleague, Scott Stein, said it worked surprisingly well. 

Stein even believes that it won't be the HUD display or redesigned frames that steal the show this year, but the EMG wristband, which allows users to navigate, type, and interact with the glasses' visual interface with taps, pinches, and swipes.

Also: Meta wears Prada? Why its next-gen AR glasses might out-style the Ray-Bans

That's promising to hear, considering I'd rather make finger gestures while walking around or sitting down than shout at an invisible voice assistant or wave my arms around in public, as I did with the Apple Vision Pro and Quest 3. 

Bottom line...

The questions I have now are: How long will the wristband last, and what else can it do beyond detecting hand gestures? And are consumers even ready to charge yet another device -- on top of their phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, earbuds, and everything else?

These questions -- and plenty more -- are exactly why I'll be tuning into Meta Connect this week. If Mark Zuckerberg truly believes the future of consumer tech lies in the frames in front of our eyes, he'll need more than a flashy demo. He'll need to convince consumers it's worth the space in their lives, and convince developers it's worth betting their future on.

ZDNET has reached out to Meta for comment regarding the news and will update this story if there's a response.