Mark Zuckerberg says Meta was working on camera-free Ray-Bans before 'pervert glasses' backlash

Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta Ray-Ban Audio glasses without cameras at the company's Connect 2026 conference.

Bloomberg/Getty Images Meta just launched a camera-free version of its Meta Ray-Ban glasses.

The audio-only glasses were not in response to controversy, Zuckerberg told Joanna Stern, and took a long time to develop.

"I mean, we didn't decide to design this in two months because some people had some questions a couple months ago." Don't think Meta made a camera-free version of its AI Ray-Bans just because of the unpleasant fact that people have been calling the camera versions "pervert glasses." Mark Zuckerberg says they've long been in the works.

Meta just added an audio-only pair to its lineup of smart glasses .

The new Meta Ray-Ban Audio glasses don't have cameras, but you can use them to listen to music, make phone calls, or talk to your Muse AI agent.

The new glasses are more lightweight, come in two styles, and start at $349.

Zuckerberg, in an interview with Joanna Stern, denied that the recent backlash had any effect on the decision to launch the design.

Stern asked if the audio-only specs were a response to people who are "uncomfortable with a camera on people's faces or having a camera on my face." "No.

I mean, we have to work on these things.

We start working on them like, I mean, you know how this works," he laughed.

"It takes a very long time in advance.

So if people have a question about something and we start working on something that it's going to take a couple of years to build the thing, the answer is no.

I mean, we didn't decide to design this in two months because some people had some questions a couple months ago.