If you want to buy a pair of Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses, you may be in for a long wait, especially if you live outside the US.
Meta said in a blog post Tuesday that a combination of strong demand and «extremely limited inventory» of the new augmented reality glasses, introduced in September, has caused it to pause a planned early 2026 expansion to the UK, France, Italy and Canada. It noted that current product waitlists now extend deep into this year.
«We’ll continue to focus on fulfilling orders in the US while we re-evaluate our approach to international availability,» a company spokesperson wrote in the post, which also detailed news items related to CES 2026.
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Smart glasses are having a boom moment as 2026 gets underway, with technology companies investing heavily in eyewear as a home for cameras, displays, microphones and no small amount of AI features. Google and Xreal, for instance, just introduced their Project Aura glasses, coming this year, and it’s widely expected that Apple will join the fray in the coming months.
Meta became the standard-bearer for the field with its earlier Ray-Ban designs, and is hoping to build on that momentum with the Ray-Ban Display model, distinguished by the miniature display in one lens and a wrist-worn neural band that serves as a controller.
In his review of the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, priced at $800, CNET’s Scott Stein called them an impressive new technology even as he expressed some misgivings. «These Display glasses are like prototypes, but the landscape is changing fast, and Meta will need to perfect the next generation further.»
Ramon Llamas, research director for mobile devices at IDC, said that Tuesday’s announcement should be seen as a delay, rather than something more dire, and that the strong early response for the Display should be encouraging to Meta.
Because the Display Ray-Bans are a first-generation device, Meta likely kept the volumes relatively low, Llamas said. «Better to limit the supply and address any bugs and adjustments before mass producing them.»
Technology analyst Daniel Burrus echoed that sentiment, noting the many factors — disparate certifications, privacy rules and regulations, language barriers and retail servicing — that Meta must consider for international orders. «Meta’s pause on international orders doesn’t feel like a stumble, rather a ‘let’s not scale too fast’ decision,» he said.
New Ray-Ban Display features announced at CES
Meta also revealed a few new features that are coming for the Display glasses, including a teleprompter and finger-writing.
The Display’s teleprompter feature, coming sometime this week, allows wearers to give a speech or a presentation while a «discreet teleprompter» with customizable text-based cards scrolls in their field of vision at whatever speed they choose.
The finger-writing feature, called EMG handwriting, is available for early access today. Using the Display glasses with the neural band on the wrist, you can write with your finger on any surface. The Neural Band will turn the writing into a digital message that you can send via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
You can sign up for early access to new Display features here.
