Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta on Wednesday launched “Meta Charm,” a small handheld gadget for using the social media conglomerate’s new “Muse AI” assistant, taking the company’s hardware efforts beyond its successful smart glasses.
The AI device, about as small as an Apple AirPods case, also features a two-inch touchscreen and a built-in 5G connection. Meta said Charm would be ready to ship for the holidays in December but did not give a price.
“We pack the whole Muse experience, including the whole real-time voice and avatar stack, into something that fits on a keychain and is always available to talk to,” Zuckerberg said at Meta’s annual device event, Meta Connect, in Menlo Park, California.
Meta Charm’s launch comes amid Silicon Valley looking for a successor to the smartphone, pouring billions into devices designed around AI assistants that can see, hear, and respond to the world around them.
Companies are betting on solutions like smart glasses, wearable pins, and handheld gadgets, trying to figure out how AI will redefine consumers’ interaction with technology.
Meta itself started with AI glasses, turning its EssilorLuxottica-Ray-Ban partnership into one of the first successes in that category.
Along with Meta Charm, Meta also showed off its first virtual-reality device, slim enough to pass for glasses, along with a pair of camera-free smart glasses designed to ease the growing privacy concerns against AI devices that can take videos and pictures of people without consent.
Meta has also expanded its viral Muse AI assistant across its smart glasses lineup, adding new capabilities including computer use and integration with retailers and services such as Walmart, Best Buy, and Gap.
Muse would become the primary interface for Meta’s glasses, allowing users to shop, make appointments, and complete tasks through voice commands.
Meta VR Glasses, priced at USD 1,299, aim to match the capabilities of bulkier and costlier rivals such as Apple’s Vision Pro.
The device weighs about as much as a deck of playing cards, a wonder that the social media conglomerate has pulled off by moving the battery and the processor into a separate pack.
The devices will arrive in the market in spring 2027.
Meta’s new camera-free glasses, called “Ray-Ban Meta Audio,” will still record audio while offering no clear signal to bystanders that recording is underway, unlike its smart glasses with a camera, which flash a light while filming.
The Meta Audio glasses are the latest made through the company’s EssilorLuxottica tie-up and will ship from October 13 at a starting price of USD 349, cheaper by USD 100 than the latest version of its Ray-Ban glasses, which continue to have cameras and will come in two new styles: the iconic Aviator and cat-eyed Zena.