If, like me, you’re not in the US and have been patiently waiting to get your hands on the new Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, I have some bad news: The global rollout has been put on “pause,” according to Meta themselves.
Dropped halfway into an otherwise ground-breaking CES 2026 blog post, as if it were a nonchalant side note in Meta’s conversation, this frustrating detail means that the “early 2026” launch of the Meta specs outside of the US won’t happen — or at least it won’t be as early as we’d hoped.
Instead, Meta explains that those of us in the UK, Canada, France and Italy (as well as other regions that Meta said it would expand availability to) will have to wait while it focuses on “fulfilling orders in the US”. Worst of all for those of us outside the US, it doesn’t say when the rollout will resume.
I reached out to Meta directly, and a representative told me, “We’re really excited about the reception of our new wearables products,” but at this point they “don’t have anything more to share” regarding the international expansion hiatus or its plans to improve U.S. fulfillment of the Display glasses.
Not the start of 2026 I wanted
Meta’s hiatus to its international distribution of display glasses is not how I hoped 2026 would start in the XR field. I was genuinely looking forward to trying a pair in the next few months and I’m devastated that I’ll have to wait an unknown amount of time for that to change.
It’s surprising that Meta would tease a rollout only to go back on its word, though it would speak to the unprecedented level of interest in its Meta Ray-Ban Display specs it described in its blog post.
While impressive, the display specs don’t come cheap – before you factor in extra costs like prescriptions, they’ll set you back $799, more than double the price of the standard $379 / £379 / AU$599 Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 glasses. What’s more, we know that the last consumer wearable that really compares to Meta’s Display glasses, Google Glass, was something of a flop.
With both points in mind, it’s not a surprise that Meta would be conservative about the level of interest in their new Display-equipped glasses. Sure, many people might want to order free demo slots, but then they might just buy the much cheaper screenless smart specs instead, if they buy anything at all.
I imagine most people still choose one of the latter two options, but it’s clear that far more people than expected have decided to splash out on the Meta Ray-Ban shades. Long wait times will only frustrate customers, so it makes sense for Meta to focus on its one existing market while ramping up production – as the alternative would be to launch them globally and end up making a much larger group of people annoyed that they can’t get the smart glasses they ordered.
Of course, understanding Meta’s reasoning does nothing to alleviate the irritation I, and I’m sure others, feel over the break.
The only silver lining I can offer is that I imagine the Meta won’t delay things too long. With Google’s Android XR glasses nipping at its heels, there’s a risk that one of Google’s glasses partners – who are working on both screen and screenless smart specs – could swoop in and steal the international market from under the Meta’s nose if they hold out too long on a global launch.
We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out, but I have a feeling (read: desperate hope) that us non-US folks will be getting our hands on the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses before too long. Let’s hope I’m not still saying this this time next year.
TechRadar will extensively cover this year’s CESand will bring you all the big announcements as they happen. Head over to ours CES 2026 live news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything we’ve seen.
You can also ask us a question about the show in our CES 2026 live Q&A and we will do our best to answer it.
And don’t forget it follow us on TikTok for the latest from the CES show floor!
