Will smart glasses soon replace your iPhone?

Meta has sold more than 7 million smart glasses in 2025. Apple, Google and Samsung are lining up their own launches for 2026–2027. Is the smartphone era starting to wind down? Here’s where things really stand.

A decade after the Google Glass debacle, connected eyewear is finally getting its comeback - and this time the sales figures back up the hype. In its Q4 2025 results, EssilorLuxottica (Meta’s partner) said that more than 7 million smart glasses were sold across the year, spanning all lines (Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta). That is over three times the combined 2 million shipped across 2023 and 2024. According to Bloomberg, Meta and the Franco-Italian group are even said to be discussing a major ramp-up, aiming for 20 million units a year by the end of 2026.

In a recent interview with Les Echos, Alex Himel, Meta’s Vice President for wearables, argued that “smart glasses are the best way to fully benefit from AI.” Mark Zuckerberg went further, claiming people without AI glasses could face a “significant cognitive disadvantage”. Big words - but the momentum is real.

A market in rapid expansion

Market indicators suggest a category taking off at speed. Global smart-glasses sales jumped by 110% in the first half of 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. AI-equipped models made up 78% of shipments, up from 46% a year earlier. IDC analysts expect annual volumes to exceed 40 million pairs by 2029, implying roughly 30% year-on-year growth.

One major reason is that Meta is no longer alone. After Ray-Ban and Oakley carried much of the category’s mainstream visibility, 2026 looks set to become a turning point. In its latest quarterly results, Samsung said its AR glasses would arrive this year. Google is preparing its own Android XR eyewear, having shown prototypes of “Aura” powered by Gemini. Snapchat has also confirmed that consumer “Spectacles” are planned for 2026.

Apple, of course, is the looming heavyweight. The company is reportedly working on connected glasses powered by a dedicated chip based on Apple Watch architecture, designed for AI workloads and low power use. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports that mass production could begin late 2026 for an early 2027 release, featuring two cameras, no display at first, and tight links with iPhone and Apple Intelligence. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo forecasts 3–5 million units sold in the first year.

China is another pressure point that Meta is watching closely. As Alex Himel noted in Les Echos, “competition is toughest in China.” Xiaomi, Baidu, Rokid and others are moving fast, sometimes at aggressive price points below €200 (for example, Xiaomi’s Mijia Smart Audio Glasses at €179.99).

What connected glasses can (already) do

The appeal of the Ray-Ban Meta approach rests on a straightforward strategy: don’t try to replace the phone outright - make common actions easier when your hands are busy. As Alex Himel puts it, they make it simpler to place a call, listen to music, and capture photos and videos on the fly. With AI layered on top, those everyday uses become more powerful.

In practical terms, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 glasses run Meta’s Llama 4 model. You can ask questions by voice with “Hey Meta”, and the assistant can interpret what you are looking at through an integrated 12 MP camera - recognising a dish, translating a sign, or describing a landmark. For travel, city breaks and day-to-day curiosity, that “see what I see” capability is already striking.

Meta’s Ray-Ban Display models, priced at US$799, push further by adding a 600×600 colour display embedded in the right lens and a Neural Band wrist accessory that reads muscle signals to navigate the interface. It is still an early, relatively basic form of augmented reality - but it works, and it signals where the category wants to go.

Where this could fit into everyday life in the United Kingdom

In a UK context, the most compelling early use-cases are likely to be “micro-moments”: getting walking directions without pulling out a handset, reading a quick translation when travelling abroad, or capturing a short clip while cycling (where safe and legal), hiking or at a football match. For many people, the value is not doing more on the face - it is doing the same things with less friction.

There is also a clear accessibility angle. Always-available spoken help, scene descriptions, and translation could become a meaningful assistive layer, particularly if battery life and on-device processing improve. If manufacturers treat inclusivity as a core feature rather than an add-on, smart glasses may evolve into a daily support device, not merely a camera you wear.

Why the smartphone is not (yet) under threat

Even with rapid growth, there remains a sizeable gap between smart glasses and the smartphone - and it will not disappear overnight. First, battery life is still the weak point. Ray-Ban Meta models offer roughly 4–5 hours of active use, whereas a phone generally lasts the whole day. Continuous AI use drains the battery faster still. Alex Himel has acknowledged the limitations, noting that Meta AI cannot yet deliver an end-to-end experience reliably.

A second constraint is the reliance on a smartphone. No current consumer glasses operate fully independently: you still need an iPhone or Android handset nearby for heavy processing, connectivity and storage. For now, glasses behave more like an accessory than a true replacement. As John Gruber asked in his Daring Fireball newsletter, if you already carry a phone and wireless earbuds everywhere, when do Meta glasses become essential?

Finally, the Ray-Ban Meta Display range is likely to remain US-only for some time. One reason is manufacturing capacity: EssilorLuxottica has taken a premium positioning with limited output, and it has admitted being surprised by demand, leaving it able to supply primarily the American market.

The other challenge is European regulation. Europe combines multiple hurdles: GDPR and privacy expectations raise questions about always-on image capture. More significantly, the EU’s replaceable-battery directive, due to take effect in 2027, would likely force a redesign because the battery is sealed into the frame. EssilorLuxottica has even filed a request opposing the regulation. The net effect is that new Meta Ray-Ban Display models are slow to appear in Europe, and the region risks lagging behind.

The “iPhone moment” for AI smart glasses is still ahead

It is tempting to compare this trajectory to the rise of the smartphone. When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, Apple’s goal was to sell 10 million units by the end of 2008 - a target it hit before Christmas. Meta is aiming for 10–20 million Ray-Ban units per year by 2026. The scale is starting to look familiar.

Yet the decisive “iPhone moment” for connected eyewear has not arrived. To get there, several missing pieces need to fall into place. The biggest is an all-day display experience: until glasses can continuously show notifications, navigation and contextual information, they remain complementary rather than substitutive. Meta’s Orion prototypes and rumours of future Apple display-equipped glasses (around 2028) point in that direction, but much of this is still research and development.

Next, a proper applications ecosystem still has to emerge. The iPhone’s breakthrough was cemented by the App Store. Meta has not released an SDK for Ray-Ban glasses, while Google is betting on Android XR and Apple on ARKit - but the overall app landscape remains at an early, experimental stage.

Finally - and perhaps most importantly - social acceptance takes time. Wearing a camera in public introduces unresolved privacy concerns. Some cruise lines have already banned Ray-Ban Meta glasses on board, for example. The rules of etiquette are not settled, much like early mobile-phone use in the 2000s, when taking a call in a restaurant was widely frowned upon.

So, when?

The most optimistic analysts see connected glasses becoming a genuine smartphone challenger by 2030–2035. Apple’s Eddy Cue has even suggested smart glasses could replace smartphones “within ten years.”

A more realistic reading is that mass adoption will arrive, but full replacement will take longer - if it happens at all. In 2026, smart glasses look set to become the most compelling hardware battleground, with Meta, Google, Samsung, Snap and soon Apple all competing. Even so, they are still likely to sit alongside the smartphone rather than supplant it.

The most plausible path may mirror the Apple Watch. It began as a “nice-to-have” gadget, then became indispensable for millions, yet never eliminated the iPhone. Smart glasses could follow the same pattern: not killing the smartphone, but steadily taking over tasks that no longer require you to pull out a screen.

The real shift may not be a world without phones - but one where you reach for them far less often.