Thirty dollars is what the camera costs in Meta’s new lineup. Ray-Ban Meta Audio was announced at Connect on September 23, 2026. It starts at $349 in the US and ships on October 13. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 stays on sale from $379, and the new Gen 3 starts at $449. So the camera-free model saves you little money. It makes sense for people who don’t want a camera on their face, and for anyone who mostly uses smart glasses as open-ear headphones with an assistant. For everyone else, the camera is cheap enough to keep.
Three pairs, side by side
Meta’s comparison page puts the three current Ray-Ban models in one row, and its launch post adds the Audio pair’s weight.
| Ray-Ban Meta Audio | Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 | Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US starting price | $349 | $449 | $379 |
| Camera | None | 12 MP, 3K video | 12 MP, 3K video |
| Battery per charge | Up to 12 hours | Up to 9 hours | Up to 8 hours |
| Button | Customizable action button | Customizable action button | Capture button |
| Styles | Clubmaster, Burbank | Aviator, Zena, Wayfarer | Wayfarer and others |
| Availability | Pre-order, ships October 13 | On sale now | On sale now |
Meta quotes the new models in US dollars only. It hasn’t said when the Audio frames reach other countries or what they’ll cost there.
What the Audio model does without a camera
Meta calls the Audio pair “built without a camera and more powerful than headphones.” Open-ear speakers in the arms play music, podcasts and calls and leave your ears free to hear traffic and people. Meta AI still answers by voice, so you can set reminders, send messages and ask questions without taking out your phone. The Gen 3’s action button is there too.
Without the camera, you lose everything that depends on seeing. Photos and video are the obvious loss, but the assistant loses its eyes too. Any request that needs the camera won’t work, such as asking what you’re looking at or having a sign read out.
Meta built the frames for all-day wear, with professional-adjustable temple tips, adjustable or swappable nose pads and overextension hinges. It says both styles take “a wide range of optical prescriptions.” At 43 g, Meta calls them its lightest and slimmest AI glasses yet.
Battery life in days
Meta rates the Audio model for up to 12 hours on a charge and pitches that as a full day of calls, music and Meta AI. The case holds another 48 hours, so you get 60 hours between wall sockets. At three hours of listening and calls a day, that’s about 20 days before the case itself needs charging.
The Gen 3’s rating is an hour longer than the Gen 2’s and three hours short of the Audio pair’s. One extra hour is unlikely to change how often you charge.
When a pair without a camera is the right one
Meta’s announcement never mentions privacy, but it’s the clearest reason to pick this pair. Some concert halls, theaters and bars ban camera glasses in their house rules. On September 22, the Dutch privacy regulator asked hospitals, courts and places of worship to do the same. A pair with no camera ends that argument, and nobody at the next table has to wonder whether the white light is on.
It also suits people who treat smart glasses as headphones first. If you’ve owned a Ray-Ban Meta and never used the camera after the first week, you’ve paid for hardware you don’t use. The Audio pair drops the camera, adds three hours of battery and weighs less.
It isn’t a hearing product, though. EssilorLuxottica’s Nuance Audio Plus also has no camera, but it’s built to amplify the voice in front of you. Meta’s own speech amplification is a paid add-on. As our piece on Meta hearing enhancement sets out, the company hasn’t said which frames get it first. Don’t buy the Audio pair expecting it to be one of them.
Gen 3 or Gen 2 if you want the camera
The Gen 3’s $70 premium buys a slimmer frame, the action button, six microphones that Meta says cut more than 90 percent of background noise, an hour more battery and three new styles. The camera specification is the same 12 MP and 3K video. Dolby Atmos spatial audio recording is promised for later this year.
If you own a Gen 2, you can skip the upgrade, because the camera hasn’t changed. For a first pair, the Gen 3 is worth the difference if you make a lot of calls outdoors, where the six microphones should help most.
Still open before October 13
Meta hasn’t said which countries get the Audio pair, or when. It hasn’t named the frames that will get the paid hearing feature either. And it publishes nothing that compares the open-ear speakers with earbuds, for sound or for how much the people around you hear. That’s the comparison a buyer of the Audio model will care about.
