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Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 Goes on Sale From $449 With Longer Battery Life and a New Action Button

Meta's third-generation Ray-Ban smart glasses start at $449, adding a customizable action button, a six-microphone array and up to nine hours of battery life. TechRadar says Gen 2 owners have little reason to switch, while first-time buyers have more to gain.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-25 01:10

The Gen 3 comes in three frame shapes. The Wayfarer carried over from the previous generation is offered in standard and large sizes, joined by the Aviator and the Zena, which Meta describes as a bold new cat-eye frame. Across those shapes there are 27 lens and color combinations, with colors including Black and Havana, a mix of dark and light brown. Meta says the overall design is slimmer and more comfortable to wear than the Gen 2, though the weights listed on Meta's own store suggest little change, at least for the Wayfarer. The Gen 2 remains on sale in its Wayfarer, cat-eye Skyler and rounded Headliner styles, and it also launched with 27 lens and color combinations, though the specific options differ between the two generations and have shifted over time with seasonal offerings.

Battery life is the clearest specification change. Meta rated the Gen 2 at eight hours per charge, with an additional 48 hours, or six full recharge cycles, from the charging case. The Gen 3 is rated at up to nine hours on a single charge, with the case supplying an extra 50 hours. Both generations carry the same claim of charging from zero to 50 percent in two minutes.

The camera is unchanged between generations: a 12MP ultrawide unit capable of shooting video at up to 3K resolution. Voice input gets a boost, with the Gen 3 using a six-microphone array against the Gen 2's five microphones. Speaker loudness and bass are listed identically at 76.1 dB(C), and both models have 32GB of internal storage. TechRadar notes that these comparisons come from specification sheets rather than hands-on testing.

What the glasses can do is largely the same as before. The Gen 3 adds an action button alongside the existing photo and video capture button, and it can be customized to launch a specific feature, such as the AI assistant, a text to a favorite contact or on-board translation. Otherwise the glasses run the same Meta AI and pair with the same companion app on a phone, with the same core functions: audio calls, video calls in which the caller sees what the wearer sees, live AI assistance about whatever the wearer is looking at, and playback of music, podcasts and audiobooks.

TechRadar judges the step from Gen 2 to Gen 3 as less dramatic than the jump from the first generation to the second, which brought significant improvements in video capture quality and battery life. Owners of the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 therefore have little reason to upgrade immediately, the report says, unless they particularly want one of the new frames. For people still using the first-generation glasses, or considering smart glasses for the first time, TechRadar calls the Gen 3 a much more compelling proposition.