Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses: Engadget scores 8.5/10 for all-day comfort and battery, with Canadian prices from $429

Meta’s first camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses are on sale, and Engadget’s Karissa Bell gave them 8.5 out of 10 in a review published Tuesday, praising comfort, subtler styling and a big jump in battery life while noting leftover privacy concerns and a limited action button, the review said.

In a Meta blog post dated Oct. 13, the company said Ray-Ban Meta Audio starts at US$349 and ships in Clubmaster and Burbank styles with prescription options. Meta claims up to 12 hours of mixed use or six hours of continuous audio on a charge, plus up to 48 more hours from the charging case, with a fast charge to 50 per cent in about 22 minutes. It lists weight as light as 43 grams.

On Meta’s Canadian store, Clubmaster Audio configurations list from $429 CAD for clear or standard sunglass lenses, about $469 for polarized options and about $519 for Transitions lenses, according to product pages such as the Clubmaster Audio listing. Prices vary by frame and lens package.

Engadget said the frames rebuild Meta’s speaker and microphone layout for a smaller chassis: six microphones and open-ear speakers, with two mics on the front of the frames instead of in the nosepads. Bell wrote that calls sounded clearer than on second-generation AirPods Pro in informal tests with friends, and that after five hours of streaming plus a one-hour call she still had close to 50 per cent battery left.

Pros in the review include lightweight comfort, styles that look closer to ordinary glasses, and massively improved battery life. Cons include an action button with only two shortcut options (music recommendations or Meta AI) and ongoing privacy questions. Meta still stores audio snippets from glasses for possible review by trained reviewers, Engadget noted, and U.S. users can no longer opt out of that collection — though recordings can be deleted in the Meta AI app.

Without a camera, the glasses avoid the “creep glasses” stigma tied to recording video, and they still support Meta AI features such as live translation and walking navigation, with the Muse agent planned in coming months, Engadget said. Bell cautioned that venue bans and proposed rules aimed at smart glasses could still catch camera-free models in the net.

Feature availability varies by region, language and software. Canadian list prices above are Meta’s published CAD figures at the time of writing and exclude optional prescription lab fees where applicable.

Sources: Engadget review by Karissa Bell (Oct. 13, 2026); Meta blog: Ray-Ban Meta Audio (Oct. 13, 2026); Meta Store Canada: Ray-Ban Meta Audio Clubmaster.