Are Meta's new smart glasses cool and useful enough to dispel the 'ick' factor?

At Meta Connect on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the company's newest hardware: a slimmed down VR headset with a brand new design, and new Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses without a camera. The audio-only glasses are lighter, weighing 43 grams, have up to 12 hours of battery life and let wearers listen to music without headphones and chat with Meta's new Muse AI agent.

Zuckerberg also revealed a new hearing enhancement feature that users can pay extra for that turns the glasses into an FDA-cleared, over-the-counter hearing aid that can compensate for perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.

"As we tested this out, it became really clear that this had the potential to be life-changing for a lot of people," he said, introducing a video with fashion designer Lindsay Jones. She described how the glasses had helped her hear better, despite gradual hearing loss in her left ear, where she said she often can't hear conversation in noisy areas.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses come in 23 colors and lens combinations and feature two new styles: one based on the Ray-Ban Clubmaster frames and a rectangular style called Burbank. The audio glasses are available for pre-order at $349 and ship Oct. 13.

Zuckerberg didn't say anything directly about the ongoing problem with Meta's line of smart glasses in his presentation, and it's likely that the launch of the audio-only glasses is the biggest response we'll get. The company's camera-toting glasses have earned a reputation as a tool for creeps who record videos of people (most often women and girls) without their consent and harass store workers for social media views . Several jurisdictions across the U.S. restrict the use of smart glasses in courthouses now, with New York imposing a ban on smart glasses in all court buildings statewide.

Meta is aware of the image its glasses have, even if it won't say the quiet part out loud. In August, the company rolled out a fix for a feature that let smart glasses users record video with the indicator light covered, potentially allowing the wearer to record others without their knowledge or permission. And in July, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said the platform would ban users who post these harassing videos on its platform, but several news outlets have reported the videos are still accessible.

But just because Meta launched audio-only glasses doesn't mean it's doing away with camera glasses. On Wednesday, the company also unveiled the third-generation $499 Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which have improved battery life and microphones, and come in 27 color and lens combinations. The cameras on these glasses will be able to record videos with Dolby Atmos spatial audio soon, Meta says.

The company updated its lower-priced Meta Glasses as well, which debuted in June. They start at $249, with several new stylized versions: an updated Kylie Jenner-branded set and two new frames made in collaboration with Blackpink singer Lisa, each priced at $399. And Meta will sell its Ray-Ban Display glasses online in the U.S. for the first time, with a starting price of $799.

With all these hardware announcements — particularly the audio-only glasses and the plethora of new smart glasses styles — Meta is trying to make it more enticing than ever to choose a pair of smart glasses instead of regular ones. Now, potential users have the option: camera or no camera, plus a ton of fashion-forward styles that will make it hard to recognize smart glasses from basic ones.

But none of this actually addresses or fixes the creep factor and ongoing abuse of its camera glasses. Meta is still the leader in the smart glasses space, and thanks to its much lower-priced models, that's likely to continue despite competition from Snap's new Specs AR priced at $2,200 , and with Google , Apple and Samsung all expected to debut their own smart glasses.

It's possible that Zuckerberg and Meta leadership may believe that, since their smart glasses are the most popular brand by a wide margin, they don't need to directly address the privacy concerns with glasses that can record video. If Meta didn't already have such a poor privacy reputation , maybe they could get away with that. Audio-only glasses are certainly a step in the right direction, but it remains to be seen if those will be nearly as popular as the camera-carrying originals.