Meta is making its Ray-Ban Display glasses considerably more useful, and some of the new features sound like they came straight out of a slightly overconfident sci-fi movie.

At Meta Connect 2026, the company announced a new wave of features for Meta Ray-Ban Display, its AI glasses with an in-lens display and Meta Neural Band. The update expands what the glasses can do without requiring users to pull out their phones, with new navigation tools, a personalized hologram for video calls, more apps, richer notifications, and even Dolby Atmos video capture.

The biggest everyday upgrade may be navigation. Meta Ray-Ban Display will soon support cycling directions and public transit information, allowing users to ask for directions by voice and see turn-by-turn cycling instructions or real-time transit departures directly on the glasses.

The cycling and transit features are scheduled to arrive later this month in the US and Canada. Meta is also changing the way walking directions are presented. Instead of relying entirely on street names, the glasses will use recognizable objects and landmarks in the user’s surroundings.

That means a direction could eventually tell you to turn left at the yellow house rather than asking you to turn left onto a particular street. It’s a small change, but potentially a much more natural way to navigate when you’re actually looking at the world rather than a map.

Then there’s Hologram, which is easily the strangest addition to the lineup.

Video calls have always been an awkward problem for camera-equipped glasses. The glasses can show the other person what you’re looking at, but they don’t exactly give the person on the other end a flattering view of your face. Meta’s solution is to create a photorealistic digital version of you.

After completing a short self-capture in the Meta AI app, users will be able to generate a digital representation of their face for calls made through Meta Ray-Ban Display. The hologram is driven by the user’s voice, with Meta’s model inferring facial expressions from what the person says and how they say it.

Meta plans to begin rolling out Hologram as an Early Access feature on WhatsApp to Meta Ray-Ban Display users in the US later this fall.

So yes, your glasses can potentially put a digital version of your face into a video call while you’re walking around or cooking. The future apparently decided that video calls needed avatars of our actual faces.

Meta is also introducing Explore, a new app for Meta Ray-Ban Display designed to provide access to experiences built specifically for the glasses. The company says Explore will bring together experiences for learning, exploration, and play, with more applications expected to arrive over time.

The glasses are getting better at handling information from your phone, too. Meta says mirrored notifications are coming soon, allowing selected smartphone notifications to appear directly on the Ray-Ban Display screen. Users will be able to control which notifications are shown and turn off the ones they don’t want.

Calendar functionality is also being expanded. In the US, users can see who is attending a meeting, accept or decline invitations, and join meetings directly from the glasses. The feature will initially be available in English.

And then there is Threads.

Meta says Threads Community Feeds will allow users to follow curated feeds around live events and other communities directly from their glasses. Users will also be able to repost Threads they like without reaching for their phone. It’s another example of Meta trying to turn the glasses from a camera-and-AI accessory into something that can quietly deliver information throughout the day.

The camera is getting an upgrade of its own. Meta says its AI glasses are now the first consumer device capable of capturing and experiencing video in Dolby Atmos. The videos are recorded with spatial surround sound, allowing playback to retain a greater sense of where sounds originated.

Taken together, these updates push Meta Ray-Ban Display further toward being a small wearable computer rather than simply a pair of smart glasses with a screen.

That direction is particularly apparent when the new features are considered alongside what the Display glasses already offer. Meta has positioned them around glanceable information, navigation, notifications, AI assistance, messaging, translations, and hands-free interaction, with the Neural Band providing another way to control the glasses.

Meta is also making the hardware easier to buy. Online ordering for Meta Ray-Ban Display is now available in the US, while Canada and the UK are getting both online ordering and retail availability. France, Italy, and Germany are receiving preorders, with broader online and retail availability scheduled for October 13.

That international expansion matters because Meta is clearly no longer treating Ray-Ban Display as a limited experiment. With navigation, communications, notifications, apps, media capture, and AI increasingly moving onto the glasses, the company is building toward a world where reaching for your phone isn’t always the first instinct.

Whether people actually want a photorealistic hologram of themselves appearing on their friends’ phones is another question entirely.

But at least Meta has apparently decided that if our phones are going to disappear into our pockets, the glasses need to be ready to take over.