Everything We Know About Meta Connect 2026: Glasses, Chips, and a Market Turning Point

2026 is shaping up as the year smart glasses go from a niche accessory to a full-blown platform war. Meta Connect returns to the company's Menlo Park campus on September 23–24, 2026, and the stakes have never been higher. CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased the dates in an Instagram post that hinted at new glasses, a smartwatch, and Quest 4 headsets . The evening keynote promises updates across AI, VR, wearables, and the metaverse — but the main event is clearly smart glasses.

Meta's ambition is no secret. An internal memo from Alex Himel, VP of wearables, leaked in early June 2026 and outlined a reality where Reality Labs pushes hard toward a 10-million-unit annual sales target by the second half of 2026 . For context, as of February 2026, the company had sold only about 2 million Ray-Ban Meta units since launch . That's a huge leap, and Meta is planning to get there with an avalanche of new hardware.

Four New Smart Glasses — and Then Some

The leaked roadmap includes up to four new smart glasses models for 2026, each with a code-name and a target window .

• Modelo – An entry-level model, reportedly launching as early as June 2026 .
• Luna – Expected this fall, likely a refresh of the current Ray-Ban Meta design language .
• RBM2 Refresh – Another fall release updating the existing Ray-Ban Meta form factor .
• Mojito VIP – A premium tier with a built-in heads-up display, building on the Meta Ray-Ban Display introduced in late 2025 .

The plan goes beyond glasses. Meta is also working on an "AI Pendant" (a neck-worn AI companion, codenamed "Hatch") and experimental "supersensing" prototypes that include always-on environmental sensors and a controversial facial-recognition feature reportedly code-named "Name Tag" . These products are being developed alongside a "Wearables for Work" business subscription aimed at reaching that 10-million-unit goal .

Qualcomm's Next-Gen XR Chip: A September Debut Is Likely

On June 10, 2026, Qualcomm published a cryptic teaser promising "something new" for its extended-reality platform: a "smarter and more immersive" experience most observers believe will be powered by its next-generation Snapdragon XR chip . The company has a well-established pattern of unveiling flagship XR silicon alongside Meta hardware at Connect — the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 launched with Quest 3 in 2023, and the XR2+ Gen 1 debuted with Quest Pro before that .

Reports already describe the upcoming Qualcomm XR X3 chipset as the processing core for Meta's Quest 4 and Quest 4S, with a "substantial performance increase over previous generations" . While Qualcomm hasn't officially confirmed the venue, the September timing of Meta Connect aligns perfectly with the chipmaker's teaser timeline, making this the most probable venue for the formal announcement .

The Competition Gets Real

For years, Meta had the smart-glasses category mostly to itself. That era is ending in 2026.

Samsung and Google fired a clear shot at Google I/O in May 2026, unveiling their first joint AI glasses built on Android XR and Gemini AI. The product is slated to ship this fall — right around Meta Connect — through fashion partnerships with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster . Analysts are already calling this "the race for second place," but the Samsung-Google-Qualcomm alliance is the first credible challenge to Meta's dominance .

Apple, meanwhile, is hitting delays. Codenamed "N50," Apple's first consumer smart glasses have reportedly slipped to late 2027, past the 2026 holiday window that Bloomberg once targeted . That gives Meta at least another year of near-monopoly in the category. Apple is expected to lean heavily on ecosystem integration when the device finally ships .

A Market at a Turning Point

Meta held roughly 72–73% of global XR/smart-glasses shipments as of mid-2025, according to IDC and Counterpoint Research . But the arrival of Samsung, Google, and a wave of Chinese competitors is expected to push the total AI smart glasses market to roughly 16 million units in 2026, an 85% jump year-over-year, according to Smart Analytics Global . That growth means the pie is expanding even as Meta's share of it becomes harder to defend. By 2030, analysts expect Apple, Samsung, and Meta to consolidate as the top three vendors .

Meta Connect 2026 isn't just a product launch window. It's the moment where Meta must prove it can lead the category it created while simultaneously fending off the largest tech companies on the planet. The smart glasses war is no longer theoretical, and it starts in Menlo Park this September.