A new report suggests that a Meta smartwatch will launch at some point this year, but it likely won’t compete with the Apple Watch.

Based on previous comments by the company, it may serve as more of an accessory to a future Meta smart glasses product …

Meta’s plans for a smartwatch were first revealed by a leaked image inside the company’s Ray-Ban Stories app way back in 2021. A subsequent report said that the company had put the project on hold, before yet another one said that it had been revived.

While there was no sign of it last year, The Information carries a paywalled report in which it says the company is aiming to launch later this year.

It has previously been speculated that the device was intended to complement smart glasses, and CNET believes this is very much the plan. Indeed, it suggests the watch may be primarily intended as an accessory for the company’s upcoming smart glasses equipped with a display.

When I talked with Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth last year, he told me that the neural band Meta released with the Ray-Ban Display glasses last fall was something that would eventually make sense as part of a watch. That’s exactly what I think will happen this year […]

Debuting a new neural-equipped watch with next-gen Ray-Ban Display glasses (hopefully with a wider range of subscription support and developer access to create apps) would make a lot of sense as Apple and Google look ready to dive into the same territory.

This does seem likely. Building on its existing Ray-Ban Meta glasses, the company does seem to be going all in on smart glasses as its primary form factor for delivering AI capabilities. The idea of turning a companion neural band into at least a fitness tracker clearly makes a lot of sense.

The Meta smartwatch is unlikely to worry the Apple Watch team in Cupertino, but things will of course get very much more interesting once an Apple Glasses product launches.

• Ray-Ban Meta glasses
• Official Apple Store on Amazon
• Apple’s iPhone cases: iPhone 17 | iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max | iPhone Air
• Wireless CarPlay adapter (2026 update)
• AirTag holders and accessories
• Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing
• NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify

Purely illustrative photo of Samsung smartwatch by Daniel Romero on Unsplash