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When we covered the Samsung Jinju smart glasses leak back in April, one thing was already obvious: Google and Samsung were both converging on the same formula- Warby Parker and Gentle Monster partnerships, Android XR platform, no display on the first attempt. The race to make AI glasses feel like normal glasses was on.
Meta has been running that race longer than anyone. And this week, it showed just how far ahead it plans to stay. According to The Information, which reviewed an internal Meta memo, the company is developing an AI pendant, planning up to four new smart glasses models before the end of 2026, and building an enterprise subscription service called “Wearables for Work.” None of this has been officially confirmed by Meta.
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The Pendant: Meta Already Owns the Team That Built One
The pendant is described as a clip-on device with a microphone that listens throughout your day and generates summaries and a searchable record of your conversations. That’s it. No screen, no camera just always-on audio capture with AI on the back end.
This is not a new idea for Meta. In March 2026, Meta acquired Limitless, a startup whose entire product was a device literally called the Pendant that did exactly this. Limitless CEO Dan Siroker confirmed the deal publicly, saying it aligned with Meta’s vision of bringing personal superintelligence to everyone through AI wearables. After the acquisition, Limitless stopped selling the Pendant to new customers, though existing users are still being supported.
So the team Meta is reportedly using to build this pendant already shipped one. That’s a meaningful difference from most hardware announcements, there’s no starting from scratch here.
The privacy side of this is genuinely unsettled. An always-on recording device raises harder questions than a camera on a glasses frame, and Meta hasn’t laid out any public framework for consent or data handling specific to the pendant yet. It’s also worth noting that Limitless was already pulling out of the EU and UK markets ahead of the Meta integration suggesting those regulatory environments will be slower to see this product, if they see it at all.
Four New Glasses Models, One Subscription Service
The glasses roadmap is the bigger story in terms of volume.
According to The Information’s reporting, Meta is planning to release up to four more smart glasses models before 2026 ends, under the codenames Modelo, Luna, RMB2 Refresh, and Mojito VIP. RMB2 Refresh is almost certainly another Ray-Ban iteration. The other three are unclear from what’s been reported. A “Wearables for Work” enterprise subscription is also reportedly in development alongside the new hardware.
The subscription angle connects to something we covered earlier this week- Meta’s launch of paid plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, along with the Meta One tiers for creators and businesses. “Wearables for Work” fits that same direction: hardware Meta is already selling at scale, with a recurring revenue layer on top.
On the sales side, Meta reportedly wants to move 10 million wearables in just the second half of 2026. According to analyst estimates, around seven million Ray-Ban Meta pairs were sold across all of 2025 a figure that itself represented a major jump from previous years, with EssilorLuxottica confirming sales more than tripled year over year in the first half of 2025. The H2 2026 target, if accurate, would mean Meta is aiming to beat a full year’s sales in six months.
Why Meta Is Doing All of This at Once
Reality Labs- the Meta division that covers glasses, VR headsets, and AR, posted an operating loss of $6.02 billion in Q4 2025 alone, on $955 million in sales. Total losses for the unit have crossed $80 billion since late 2020.
The glasses are the clearest bright spot inside that division. But strong glasses sales don’t offset multi-billion quarterly losses quickly at current price points. Meta needs volume, and it needs a subscription layer that generates recurring revenue on top of hardware which is the logic behind both “Wearables for Work” and the broader Meta One subscription framework.
The internal reshuffle tells the same story. Meta laid off more than 1,000 Reality Labs employees in January 2026, cutting VR studio operations and moving resources toward AI wearables. The company isn’t walking away from hardware. It’s narrowing down to the hardware that’s actually moving units.
The Competition Is Arriving From Several Directions
When we wrote about Google’s return to smart glasses at I/O this month, the competitive frame was mostly Meta versus Google. It’s wider than that now.
Google is launching audio glasses with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster this fall. Samsung’s Jinju is expected to be teased at Unpacked this summer, running Android XR with Gemini and reportedly equipped with a 12-megapixel Sony camera with autofocus. Apple is also said to be working on its own glasses product, though no confirmed timeline exists for that. IDC projects the XR market to grow 33.5% in 2026.
What Meta has that none of these competitors can quickly match is retail presence, existing customer data, and a proven product that people are already buying. Ray-Ban Meta is in stores. It has reviews, word of mouth, and repeat customers. That’s a different position than launching a first-generation product into an established market.
The pendant is a separate bet entirely more personal, more sensitive, and less proven as a mainstream category than glasses. Limitless tried to build it as a standalone company. Amazon acquired a similar startup called Bee. The underlying idea has traction in early-adopter circles. Whether it scales to mainstream use depends entirely on whether people are comfortable wearing a device that records everything they say — and whether Meta can make that feel acceptable rather than unsettling.
What We’re Watching
Four glasses models by end of 2026 is a fast timeline even for a company with Meta’s manufacturing partnerships. The “Wearables for Work” subscription will be the clearest early signal of whether the hardware momentum can turn into a revenue line that stands on its own rather than remaining a loss that Meta’s advertising business quietly absorbs year after year.
The pendant is the longer, harder play. But Meta bought the people who already built one. That’s usually how these things start.