The deluge of smartglasses has begun.
At the low end, there's the new line of Meta Glasses, which start at $299 and play well with vision-benefit plans. (For another $100, there's a pair aimed at fans of Kylie Jenner.)
The appeal of these models is hands-free cameras and built-in speakers and microphones. There's no screen, but there is a voice assistant. Alphabet's Google and Samsung have teamed up to release their own competing lines, due this fall from eyewear companies Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.
For those itching to upgrade, there are glasses with in-lens displays. They cost more: Meta's is $799. The just-announced Specs from Snap -- maker of Snapchat -- will set you back $2,195. They are so chunky they look like something you might see once in a Prada ad, and never in real life.
Silicon Valley has been trying to make smartglasses happen for more than a decade -- remember Google Glass? Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has captured more than 80% of this market, but in 2025 that meant selling just seven million pairs of glasses. By comparison, the world buys more than 100 million smartwatches a year -- and more than a billion smartphones. And yes, Apple is also reportedly hard at work on its own smartglasses, although it is unclear when they might arrive.
Since the start, the idea of a face-worn computer has garnered skepticism, even hostility, and it's understandable.
When most of us are trying to reduce our time in front of screens, it seems absurd to mount them right in front of our eyeballs. And why should we be OK with everyone we meet pointing internet-connected cameras at us? It feels like an assault on what little privacy we have left.
Then there's the built-in AI. Artificial intelligence lets these glasses identify objects in our field of view, like a ficus tree or a Southern African meerkat. But there's a growing unease with companies sticking generative-AI features into any and all products, and having a little AI djinn always whispering in our ear seems like a cautionary tale -- or a "Twilight Zone" episode.
And yet there will be smartglasses, and you and I might even choose to wear them. They're a technological inevitability, a new consumer-tech arms race for the last and best real estate on our bodies.
"I envision that someday all glasses could be smartglasses," said a man who should know: Ziad Asghar heads the division of Qualcomm responsible for making the chips that go into the smartglasses from Meta, Snap, Samsung and others.
Who are they for?
The problem with most smartglasses is that it remains unclear what, exactly, they are for. Steve Jobs once said that design is as much about what something does as how it looks. It isn't hard to imagine that were he still alive today, his critique of most of the smartglasses on the market would be scathing.
Take the Snap Specs. They are a triumph of engineering, squeezing a fighter pilot helmet's worth of optics and computing into frames that, while not exactly svelte, at least don't require a chin strap.
But for what purpose?
Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel said they could be used for live translation, turn-by-turn directions, working on the go and "shared computing experiences." Presumably that involves true augmented reality, which anchors simulated objects in our 3-D space.
The catch? You have to be seen in public wearing these. To get the most out of it, your friends and colleagues would need them, too. And that's assuming the software, running on these lightweight computers, can live up to the promise.
Meta, through its partnership with global eyewear behemoth EssilorLuxottica, has done a good job keeping its smartglasses as normal-looking as possible, with an expanding variety of style choices. At a recent launch event for its latest specs, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth said, "The intention here is clear: Build a pair of glasses that fits every person, not just in terms of comfort and wearability, but also in terms of how they represent themselves in the world."
In the past, Bosworth talked about how the initial users of Meta's glasses mostly bought them to listen to audio without earbuds. Now, he says, the company is seeing users buy glasses to get always-on access to an AI bot, and ask questions about their surroundings.
A thousand niches
The Swiss-Army-knife success of the smartphone has convinced many tech leaders that the next big thing must also be universally handy, even if it's hands-free. Far more likely, said Qualcomm's Asghar, is a future in which there are smartglasses for every condition, occasion or need.
Picture this: Rick, a middle-aged daily commuter who enjoys podcasts and occasionally takes calls from his teenager, opts for audio-only smartglasses because he doesn't like the feel of earbuds. (EssilorLuxottica already markets the Nuance Audio glasses, with hearing-aid technology built into the frames.)
Meanwhile, Kaelyn, a Gen-Z influencer, buys a pair of camera-equipped glasses for her "Instagram boyfriend," so he can record her life.
And Mary, a skilled repair technician, uses the most powerful commercially available smartglasses to overlay parts from a digital twin of the wind turbines she repairs, while simultaneously conducting a "you see what I see" video call with a remote engineer.
This last type of scenario has been a moneymaker for companies such as Frontier.io, which implements augmented-reality software using existing hardware. It started with tablets and Microsoft's discontinued HoloLens, and now relies on next-gen smartglasses.
This type of powerful smartglasses offloads their computing, connectivity and batteries to a puck that sits in the wearer's pocket. Xreal's Google-powered Aura glasses do basically what a VR headset used to do, but in see-through glasses that weigh a sixth as much. The advantage of a system like Xreal's is that it doesn't have to look cool, or be an all-day accessory. It's designed for workers who aren't at their desks. They pull out the headset when they need it, like a smartphone.
"We don't believe there's going to be a one-size-fits-all XR product anytime soon," said Juston Payne, Google's senior director of product management in charge of augmented and extended reality (aka XR). "For any practical timeline that we're talking about, I don't think there's going to be one device to rule them all."
In the niche scenario, though, the market for any one model is likely to be small. Snap is making the counterargument: Users will want extra capabilities so much that they'll overcome their reluctance to wear those bulky frames.
Smartphones were permitted a long and awkward adolescence: Remember when BlackBerrys were status symbols? But face computers will have to evolve fast. They'll need to rapidly develop capabilities while being as lightweight, unobtrusive and stylish as possible.
Who knows? At some point, maybe we'll even figure out what to do with them.
Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 26, 2026 08:00 ET (12:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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