For the past two years, smart glasses were a tech story. In April 2026, they became a prescription eyewear story — and that shift changes everything about who wins, how the products are sold, and what the category is ultimately worth. Three events in the span of three days last week made that transition visible: Meta launched two new Ray-Ban models purpose-built for prescription wearers, Apple was reported to be testing four separate smart glasses designs, and Kering CEO Luca de Meo confirmed at his company’s April 16 capital markets day in Florence that Gucci-branded smart glasses built with Google are targeting a 2027 launch.
The category is no longer a single-player market. And the new players are not startups.
Meta’s Prescription Pivot
Meta announced two Ray-Ban smart glasses designed for prescription wearers. While many people already use Meta glasses with prescription lenses, the company says these new models support nearly all prescriptions and are built to better serve people who rely on all-day eyewear. The new glasses start at $499 and are available at optical retailers in the U.S. and select international markets, starting April 14. They are available in two styles: Blayzer, a rectangular design available in standard and large sizes, and Scriber, a more rounded frame style.
The prescription move is not incremental. Roughly 75% of American adults use some form of vision correction. Until the Blayzer Optics and Scriber Optics launched, those consumers had to choose between seeing clearly and wearing smart glasses. Meta removed that choice — and in doing so, addressed the single largest adoption barrier the category has faced since its inception.
The companies are reportedly considering doubling their combined production target to 20 million units per year, up from an estimated 10 million capacity by the end of 2026.
The New Competitors
Kering CEO Luca de Meo confirmed the Gucci and Google collaboration in an interview on the sidelines of Kering’s capital markets day in Florence on April 16, 2026, saying the glasses would arrive “probably next year, 2027.”
The positioning is direct: the Gucci glasses are being lined up to compete with Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses, both made in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. The deal potentially makes Gucci the first major luxury brand in the AI-powered eyewear sector, directly pitting Kering against EssilorLuxottica. Gucci sits in a much more premium fashion tier than Ray-Ban. In other words, Google isn’t just chasing Meta on features — it’s trying to pull the category upmarket, where a pair of glasses is as much a status object as it is a gadget.
Google’s initial Android XR glasses, “Project Aura,” are anticipated to debut in 2026. This marks Google’s second attempt at smart glasses, following the failure of Google Glass more than a decade ago. Google also revealed glasses collaborations with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, but those brands lack the high-profile status of Gucci.
On the Apple side, TechCrunch reports Apple is testing four smart glasses prototypes, suggesting multiple form factors before a potential 2027 launch. Apple’s design choices will steer mainstream taste.
Why Prescription Changes the Business Model
The move into prescription eyewear introduces a fundamentally different retail and economic structure that consumer electronics companies are not built to handle on their own.
Selling smart glasses through optical retail introduces complications that consumer electronics channels do not. Opticians are trained to fit lenses, not to explain AI assistants, camera privacy settings, or software updates. The customer experience in a LensCrafters is fundamentally different from the experience in a Meta Store or an Apple Store, and the staff training, product support, and return handling required for a connected device are orders of magnitude more complex than for a pair of Wayfarers.
The economics cut both ways. Higher-prescription retail margins and fitting appointments generate additional revenue at each stage of the value chain — but they also introduce friction that sunglasses retail does not require. For EssilorLuxottica, which controls the optical channel Meta now depends on, that friction is leverage.
The prescription pivot also runs directly into the most complex relationship in Meta’s hardware business. EssilorLuxottica’s adjusted gross margin fell 2.6 percentage points in 2025 to 60.9%, partly because of the higher component costs that smart glasses require compared with conventional frames. Meta wanted to offer Black Friday discounts in 2023; EssilorLuxottica rejected the idea.
The Legal Complication
Filed on January 23, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Solos Technology Limited accused Meta and EssilorLuxottica of willfully incorporating its patented smart eyewear systems into their commercial products, describing the case as “an action for willful direct and indirect patent infringement seeking damages in the multiple billions of dollars.”
The lawsuit centers on five U.S. patents held by Solos covering systems related to open-ear directional audio, microphone geometry, beamforming, sensor integration, and context-aware assistance — features the company describes as core architectural elements of how smart glasses operate.
The lawsuit focuses primarily on the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Gen 1, but Solos asserts that all subsequent releases are derivative of that first platform and continue to infringe on the five specific patents. If the court grants the requested injunction, it could create a significant void in the wearable market just as it is beginning to hit its stride.
What the Market Looks Like Now
The smart glasses market is projected to grow from $2.5 billion in 2025 to $14.4 billion by 2033, per Grand View Research. Solos itself projects that Meta smart glasses could generate $10 billion in revenue by 2030, based on current projections.
The competitive map that is emerging — Meta and EssilorLuxottica at mainstream price points, Google and Gucci targeting luxury, Apple developing multiple premium form factors, and Snap’s Specs Inc. preparing a consumer launch using Qualcomm chips — is not the map of a gadget category. It is the map of a fashion and consumer goods category that happens to run software. That distinction matters for how brands are built, how products are distributed, and which companies end up with durable market position once the prescription adoption curve plays out.
