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Two years after Zuckerberg’s prediction, Meta advances with smart glasses with AI, lens display, camera, audio, and neural bracelet, in a bid to reduce smartphone use, although phones still continue to dominate the market.
The idea that phones can be replaced by smart glasses has gained new chapters over the past few years.
Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has accelerated its investments in wearable devices with artificial intelligence and has started to treat glasses as one of the main bets for the future of personal computing.
Meta stopped talking only about the future and started launching more advanced products
In 2024, CPG published a report on Mark Zuckerberg’s interest in replacing phones with new technology.
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Since then, the big news is that Meta no longer talks only about prototypes. In September 2025, the company announced the Meta Ray-Ban Display, glasses with a small screen integrated into the lens and a starting price of US$ 799 in the United States. (Meta)
The model was presented as an evolution of the Ray-Ban Meta. The display allows viewing information, messages, calls, and AI features without taking the phone out of your pocket.
According to Meta, the product also comes with the Meta Neural Band, a bracelet that uses electromyography sensors, known as EMG technology, to detect muscle signals in the wrist and transform small hand movements into commands. (Meta)
Neural bracelet allows controlling the glasses with hand gestures
In practice, the proposal is that the user can navigate through the glasses’ interface without touching the device and without picking up the smartphone. The bracelet identifies discreet gestures, such as finger movements, and sends the commands to the device.
This point is important because it shows how Meta is trying to solve one of the biggest challenges of smart glasses: creating a simple form of control. On phones, everything happens through the touchscreen. On the glasses, the company bets on voice, AI, and gestures.
Glasses with AI already make calls, photos, videos, and translations
In addition to the model with a screen, Meta expanded the Ray-Ban Meta family, which already allows taking photos, recording videos, listening to audio, making calls, and using voice-based artificial intelligence features.
According to the Associated Press, the company also introduced an updated version of the Ray-Ban glasses, with improved battery and a focus on conversations, as well as the Oakley Meta Vanguard sports model, integrated with Garmin devices and aimed at physical activities. (AP)
These features show that the glasses can already take on quick tasks that previously depended directly on the phone, mainly camera, audio, calls, notifications, and virtual assistant.
Production could reach tens of millions of units
Another sign of progress is in scale. In January 2026, Reuters reported that Meta and EssilorLuxottica were considering doubling the annual production of Ray-Ban glasses with AI to 20 million units by the end of 2026.
If demand continued to grow, production could exceed 30 million units per year. (Reuters)
The partnership with EssilorLuxottica, owner of Ray-Ban, helps Meta attempt to turn smart glasses into a mass product, combining technology, fashion, and a brand already known in the global market.
Despite advances, the cellphone has not yet reached its end
Even with the new developments, it’s still early to say that cellphones have reached their end. In the official material in Portuguese, Meta states that the glasses allow making calls, responding to messages, and staying connected while “the smartphone remains in the pocket.” (Meta)
This phrase summarizes the current stage of technology. The glasses already reduce the need to pick up the phone constantly, but they still function more as a complement to the smartphone than as a total replacement.
Price, battery, privacy, comfort, connection, social acceptance, and app dependency are still important barriers to a definitive switch.
Project Orion shows Meta’s greater ambition with augmented reality
Meta is also working on more ambitious projects. In 2024, the company revealed the Orion prototype, presented as augmented reality glasses capable of projecting digital elements into the real world.
The device has not reached the market, but it was used as a demonstration of Zuckerberg’s vision to replace part of the mobile experience with a more immersive visual interface. (Wired)
Replacement can be gradual, not immediate
The novelty in 2026 is not that the cellphone is over, but that the replacement has started to move from discourse to a more concrete commercial phase.
Meta already has glasses with AI, screen, camera, audio, voice commands, and neural wristband control. Even so, the smartphone remains dominant and should continue to be essential for some time.
The most realistic scenario is a gradual transition. First, the glasses take on quick tasks. Then, with better screens, more useful AI, longer battery life, and more affordable prices, they can increasingly reduce dependence on the cellphone.
Zuckerberg has not yet proven that smartphones will disappear, but Meta is trying to build, piece by piece, the device that could compete for this space in the coming years.
