As important as it was for Meta to squeeze a screen into its smart glasses with the Ray-Ban Meta Display, the excitement generated by the hardware was betrayed by the software side of things. The thing is, there just weren’t a ton of apps to use in the company’s $800 smart glasses at launch, although things might finally be coming.
Meta has opened up the Ray-Ban display, meaning developers can now create web apps using the display and neural strip, and launch them on the smart glasses via a URL. To be clear, this is aimed at developers at the moment, but the early results are certainly interesting, and they’re a good sign for anyone who wants more from their expensive smart glasses. If you are an early adopter, you can enable Meta’s developer mode on your Ray-Ban display and start having fun, but any apps you can access (again, you’ll need the developer URL) will likely be a work in progress.
The gap between idea and prototype has never been smaller. Add in glasses and inputs like the Neural Band, and it looks like the early days of construction in a way we haven’t seen in over a decade.
We deploy web applications and mobile SDK on Meta Ray-Ban Display. Developer Preview… pic.twitter.com/OlDayAkozd
-Boz (@boztank) May 14, 2026
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth demonstrated a sample app, “Darkroom Buddy,” that guides users through the process of developing a film, which in theory could be useful, especially for people just learning. The video above shows how the screen inside the Meta Ray-Ban Display can hold your hand throughout the timing and method. How well the app works is anyone’s guess, but having hands-free playback makes a lot of sense for things like film developing.
There’s also an early example of how YouTube will look on the Meta Ray-Ban display, which I suspect would speak to most smart glasses owners, since watching videos might be the one thing that still unites us all. Obviously, this is just a first taste of the experience, and given my experience with the Meta Ray-Ban screen, I wouldn’t expect it to be this clean when projected onto your real eyeballs.
Here’s a first look at watching YouTube videos with the Ray-Ban Display Meta smart glasses pic.twitter.com/6uUdp8xQJw
– Nathie (@NathieVR) May 14, 2026
There’s also the caveat about battery life, which I think takes a toll on many apps under development. As appealing as it would be (for people who hate reality) to walk around with YouTube glued to your face all the time, I don’t think the Ray-Ban Meta screen battery would agree with that assessment. It takes a lot of juice to channel light through the geometric waveguides inside the Ray-Ban Meta screen, and the more you use the screen, the faster the battery drains, especially if the brightness is increased.
There’s still a long way to go before Meta convinces me that it has a real, sustainable ecosystem for its smart glasses, but opening up the forum so people can actually build apps that people want to use is a good start if Meta doesn’t torpedo its own brand before the apps have a chance to mature.