First impression of Meta Ray-Ban Display, Taking a big swing at Airbnb

Yesterday, I drove for 40 minutes to go to a Best Buy store where I scheduled my demo for Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. When I reached there, I could see that Best Buy had a prominently displayed corner for Meta Ray-Ban.

I saw a guy who missed their demo on the 30th and was asking the salesperson whether he could get the demo now. The salesperson said they’re fully booked for the demo for the whole day, and he would have to reschedule the demo to get a slot. He asked if he could buy the glass without the demo; he could and he did. There was also another woman who seemed to really want to buy the glass but ultimately decided otherwise because she wanted to wait for the sand colored frames (they only had black ones).

Unfortunately, my demo did not go well. The salesperson claimed the glass and wrist band were low on battery which is why they weren’t working properly. I later realized that the salesperson made me wear the neural wristband incorrectly which made it near impossible to operate the glass through gestures.

After hearing that I could return the glass in the next two weeks if there are any issues, I decided to just buy it despite the negative demo experience. So I came home, charged it for about an hour or so, and then decided to try it out.

It turns out you really don’t need the demo. Meta’ instructions and set up process were simple and clear. However, it definitely takes a while to acquaint yourself with how to operate the glass through gestures via your neural wrist band. I kept making silly mistakes, but after an hour or so, it started feeling quite natural as it almost became a muscle memory. They have a game called “hyper trail” which I suggest you should play to learn to use your gestures to operate the glass. You can also operate the glass by touching the right frame, but once you get used to the gestures, it’s more convenient to operate through the neural band.

Here’s what Ray-Ban Meta (the earlier version) and Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses look like side by side. I prefer the earlier case, but the Display’s frame feels much nicer.

Once you get a hang on the wrist band, it really is an incredibly cool experience.

Just like the earlier version, I could take photos and record videos, but I used to have to open my phone to actually see those photos and videos I took. Now I could see them directly on my glasses, browse my photos, and zoom into them if I want.

When I ask questions to Meta AI, I can now actually read the response as well which I thought was a pretty neat experience.

I connected my WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook to the glass. I could read my messages through the glass; however, I could only read like last ~15-20 messages, not the entire chat conversation. Similarly, I could only read last 10 chats, so I didn’t have access to all my chats. I could dictate to respond to my chats and send message through the glass, but I couldn’t write it through gestures yet (I believe this feature will be available later).

Interestingly, I could watch Reels if someone sent me one in IG DM, but there was no way to browse my IG or Facebook feed. Watching Reels on the glass is a pretty cool experience, and I would definitely browse through some Reels if I could do that.

The biggest disappointment in the glass is there is no browser. So if I clicked a link, it wouldn’t open it on the glass and just send me a notification of the link to the “Meta AI” app on the phone. Similarly, there is no YouTube. It would be really amazing to watch YouTube videos while walking, cooking, or doing some other work.

Audio experience on Meta Ray-Ban Display wasn’t a huge upgrade either. Just like earlier, I could listen to music and podcast through the glass but there was very limited functionality of the Spotify app through the glass. I couldn’t browse the Spotify app or watch video. It would be really nice if I could listen to music/podcast and pull up the lyrics/subtitle along with it through the glass.

I tried “captions” which let you see live captions of your conversation with someone. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s decent enough. Not sure I will trust its translation yet if I’m speaking with someone in a different language. The “Map” app is also nice, but given its limited functionality (you can search by dictating, but it often gets it wrong), I can’t imagine myself using it much over Google Maps on my phone.

Meta AI remains spotty. Sometimes it just doesn’t respond anything. It is nowhere close to be as natural as it seems to talk to ChatGPT. There was also no way to connect your emails, so you definitely need your phone if you want to check or read your emails.

The killer feature in Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses is video calling. While Zuck and Boz couldn’t make it work during this year’s Connect, it really is an amazing experience. While the person on the other side only sees your POV, you can see the person on the other side pretty clearly. I have a 9-month old son and given my parents live in Bangladesh, we do a lot of video calling. Personally, a POV video calling is quite a handy feature in this context.

Overall, without doubt, it’s a pretty cool experience. If you already didn’t have Meta Ray-Ban glasses, you would probably be more blown away by this than I was. For me, it was cool but more of an incremental progress than a massive jump. It does cost more than double that of Meta Ray-Bans though, so unless you do a lot of video calling, Ray-Ban Meta (the earlier version) may be good enough for most people. Even if you love video call, presumably in most cases, the person on the other side wants to see you and not just your POV; so, the phone still does have an advantage there.

It is quite clear that Meta needs an app store for the glass. With a thriving app ecosystem, it is not hard to imagine how the glass could be much more interesting and useful over time. Smartphones are still very much safe, but Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are a pretty clear glimpse of the future. Apple and Google may still have a decided advantage here if they could somehow export their current app ecosystem to glasses as well. Apple’s recent push to unveil glasses in 2026 (and ship in 2027) is perhaps an acknowledgement that they too realize that the glass may indeed become the next dominant computing device and that reality may be sooner than we (or Apple) thought.

While Meta Ray-Ban Display felt incremental to me personally, the path seems increasingly clear that this is indeed the right race for Meta to stay focused on. Google and Apple may have theoretical (and real) advantages here, but so far, it is only Meta who is shipping.

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I decided to take a big swing at Airbnb yesterday. I will share some thoughts on this behind the paywall.