You might’ve heard about the endless controversy surrounding Meta’s growing array of smart glasses. You’ve certainly seen what the Meta specs are capable of, even if you’ve never used one yourself. Next, you’ll actually get to see the glasses in action. Last week, Meta and EssilorLuxottica confirmed South Africa is on the guest list.
The retail expansion isn’t exclusive to South Africa. It’s one of many new countries unlocking official access to the glasses, joining Poland, Portugal, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Thus far, Meta has only confirmed the “already loved portfolio of AI glasses” for these locations.
Meta Ray-unbanned
To us, that sounds like the back catalogue of specs will make their way to South African shelves — while those newer specs will remain exclusive to their original markets, at least at first. There’s no telling (yet) when the glasses will go on sale. EssilorLuxottica said they’d be expanding its reach sometime “in the coming months”.
Meta’s own announcement specifically calls out the “Oakley Meta, Ray-Ban Meta and Ray-Ban Meta Optics” as part of the global expansion. It also puts Turkey on the list, something the other announcement didn’t. While that doesn’t get us any closer to the specific models we’ll see locally, we do know that Saffas won’t get hold of Muse.
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Meta has made it clear that Muse will be US-only, with no plans for a wider release yet. Muse, if you’re unaware, is the company’s AI agent, also accessible via the Muse Charm. While we’re not as fussed about the loss of the AI agent, we were a little disappointed to see that ‘Hearing Enhancement’ will also stay behind in the US.
All that’s really left are the specs’ audio and camera capabilities (which do seem robust), assuming South Africa doesn’t get a model with a display. It’ll make filming content a breeze — perhaps too much so. Now seems like a good time to remind readers about ‘Nearby Glasses‘, an app that’ll sound the alarm if someone nearby is filming off their glasses. What the Meta specs will cost is still unknown, but we’re guessing it won’t be pretty.
