7 things to expect at Meta Connect 2026 —from camera-less smart glasses to Meta Ray-ban glasses updates

It’s almost time for Meta Connect, with the brand hosting its annual event on September 23 and 24.

Here, we’re expecting to see several new devices, with a focus on smart glasses.

Software updates are also likely, including to Meta Muse, but between the RAM crisis and a privacy backlash against the company’s smart specs, this might not be an entirely rosy affair.

So below, we’ve detailed the seven major things to expect at Meta Connect 2026 — covering both the good and the bad.

1.

Camera-free Meta smart glasses The Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 (Image credit: Meta) While smart glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta can be extremely useful, they’re also facing a major backlash right now, with many people worrying about them being used as spy glasses to photograph and video people without their knowledge or consent.

As a result, Meta might respond by launching camera-free smart glasses .

These are rumored to land at Meta Connect, and would likely focus on conversational interactions with Meta’s AI chatbot.

It makes sense for Meta to launch these, though how useful or appealing they will be when the AI can’t see what you’re looking at remains to be seen.

2.

The Project Phoenix mixed reality headset First official visuals of Meta's Project Phoenix, found in the HorizonOS Prescription Lens firmware package! pic.twitter.com/YmN0SCJNCD September 10, 2026 We’ve been hearing for a while that Meta is working on a mixed reality headset codenamed Project Phoenix, and while this reportedly won’t launch until 2027, we might get an official look at it during Meta Connect.

From what we’ve seen so far, this might look more like smart glasses than the Meta Quest 3S headset , despite featuring both AR and VR functionality.

However, Project Phoenix has been pictured with a cable running down from it, suggesting that perhaps the battery and/or processor are external, thereby allowing for a slim design.

We don’t know much else about this yet, but that might change at Meta Connect.