If, like me, you’re not in the US and have been waiting patiently to get your hands on the new Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, then I have bad news: the global launch has been put on “pause” according to Meta itself.
Left in the middle of a run-of-the-mill CES 2026 blog post as if it were a nonchalant comment in the Meta thread, this frustrating detail means that the “early 2026” release of the Meta specs outside the US won’t happen, or at least it won’t be as early as we’d hoped.
Instead, Meta explains that those of us in the UK, Canada, France, and Italy (as well as other regions Meta said it would expand availability to) will have to wait while it focuses on “fulfilling orders in the US.” Worst of all for those of us outside the US, it doesn’t say when the rollout will resume.
I contacted Meta directly and a representative told me, “We are very pleased with the reception of our new wearable products,” however, at this time they have “nothing further to share” regarding the international expansion pause, nor their plans to improve compliance for Display glasses in the US.
Not the start of 2026 I wanted
Meta’s pause in its international distribution of Display glasses is not how I expected 2026 to start in the XR field. I was really looking forward to trying a pair in the next few months and am devastated that I will have to wait an unknown amount of time before that changes.
It’s surprising that Meta would tease a launch only to go back on its word, although that would speak to the unprecedented level of interest in its Meta Ray-Ban Display specs that it outlined in its blog post.
While impressive, the display specs don’t come cheap: before you apply additional costs like prescriptions, they’ll set you back $799, more than double the cost of the standard $379 / £379 / AU$599 Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 glasses. What’s more, we know that the last consumer wearable device truly comparable to Meta’s Display glasses, Google Glass, was something of a flop.
With both points in mind, it’s no surprise that Meta is conservative about the level of interest in its new Display-equipped glasses. Sure, plenty of people can book free demo slots, but they could then buy the much cheaper, screenless smart specs, if they buy at all.
I imagine most people still opt for one of those last two options, but clearly a lot more people than expected have decided to spend money on the Meta Ray-Ban screens. Long wait times will only frustrate customers, so it makes sense for Meta to focus on its one existing market while ramping up production, since the alternative would be to launch them globally and end up upsetting a much larger group of people by not being able to get the smart glasses they’ve ordered.
Of course, understanding Meta’s reasoning does nothing to alleviate the annoyance I, and I’m sure others, feel about the pause.
The only silver lining I can offer is that I imagine Meta won’t want to delay things for too long. With Google’s Android
We’ll have to wait and see how things progress, but I have a feeling (read: desperately hoping) that us non-Americans will be getting our hands on Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses before long. Let’s hope we don’t keep saying that next year at this time.
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