Meta has switched off the cameras on thousands of pairs of its own smart glasses. It did it remotely, with a software update. The targets were owners who had covered or drilled out the small light that warns people they are being filmed. The glasses still play music and take calls. The camera no longer works.

Meta's vice president of wearables, Alex Himel, told Semafor the tampered pairs make up less than a tenth of a percent of glasses sold. Meta sold 7 million pairs in 2025 alone, so even that small share means thousands of pairs. Then, on 23 September, Meta launched a pair of glasses with no camera at all, and promoted the missing camera as a benefit.

In 2014, Google asked owners to behave. In 2026, Meta disables the camera when they misbehave.

My take on this? The camera switch-off made the headlines. The bigger story is what Meta showed at its September conference. Its glasses, its AI agent, its apps and its data centres now fit together as one system. Google is building the same thing. Apple will keep selling to the premium end of the market. Office work will go to Microsoft, Meta and Google, whose products will connect to each other through the cloud.

The laptop has five to ten years left. To see how we get there, start with the last time a tech giant put a camera on people's faces.

2014: Google asked Glass owners to behave

Google Glass arrived in 2013. It was a headset with a camera and a small see-through display. People who used it to film strangers uninvited picked up a nickname in San Francisco: Glassholes. Google even acknowledged the word in public.

In February 2014, Google published a list of dos and don'ts for owners. Ask before you film people. Hang the glasses around your neck if they make others uneasy. Stay patient when strangers ask about them, and offer a demo. On lurking in the corner of a room and recording everyone, Google said it "is not going to win you any friends".

The same guide sold the hands-free controls as ideal for golf, cooking, or juggling flaming torches while balancing on a beach ball. People mocked Glass, sales were weak, and Google killed the device two years after launch, The New York Times reports.

Meta's answer, a decade on, was to make smart glasses look like Ray-Bans. Millions sold. Then people started drilling out the recording light.

2026: Meta switches off cameras remotely

Meta's glasses carry a small white light on the frame. It flashes when you take a photo and blinks while you record video, and Meta says it has no off switch. On glasses that look like ordinary sunglasses, that light is the only warning a stranger gets. So people covered it with tape and drilled it out. Owners filmed women in gyms, bathrooms and changing rooms. Shops and restaurants put up signs banning the glasses, and the Times reports they earned the nickname "pervert glasses".

Meta answered in stages. In July, the glasses stopped the camera starting when the light was blocked. People began recording first and covering the light afterwards, so a late August update stopped the recording mid-way. On 1 September, Meta confirmed it had disabled the camera on thousands of tampered pairs. Owners who used tape get the camera back once they peel it off. Owners who removed the light lost the camera for good.

Himel described the fight as "a little bit of a cat and mouse game". Here is why that matters beyond Meta. The company reached into glasses people had paid for and changed what they do. This time it targeted people misusing the camera. Meta can send the same kind of update to every pair it has sold.

Then came Connect, Meta's annual conference. Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Ray-Ban Meta Audio, glasses with microphones and speakers and no camera, at US$349. He said removing the camera allowed slimmer frames and longer battery life. The Times called it a sheepish retreat.

The audio glasses also show Meta's wider plan: a range of devices that all connect to the same AI assistant and the same apps.

Meta connects its devices, AI and apps

Here is the range Meta announced, from smallest to largest:

Muse Charm, price to come. A keychain with a small screen, speakers and microphones. It carries Muse, Meta's AI agent, and launches later in 2026.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio, from US$349. Music, calls and the AI assistant, with no camera.

Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, from US$449. The camera version, with 3K video and nine hours of battery.

Meta VR Glasses, US$1,299.99, spring 2027. Several large virtual screens, and any desk becomes a keyboard and touchpad.

All four connect to Muse. Meta's AI agent is coming to the glasses and the Charm, and it already shops at Walmart and Instacart. We covered what Muse reads instead of your product video earlier this month. Next come the apps. On the VR glasses, WhatsApp and Zoom calls will show you as a lifelike hologram. Then comes the office. The VR glasses connect to Windows PCs and Macs as extra screens, and play Xbox games streamed from Microsoft's cloud.

Meta and Microsoft have done this before. In 2022, they agreed to bring Teams, Office and the whole of Windows to Meta's Quest headsets. The Office apps arrived as web apps. Windows arrived streamed from Microsoft's data centres. The headset only had to show it.

The glasses show the work. The computing happens in data centres.

Running all of this takes data centres, and Meta is spending heavily to build them.

Follow the money

Meta's spending on buildings and equipment, mostly data centres packed with AI servers, rose from US$39.23 billion in 2024 to US$72.22 billion in 2025. For 2026, Meta plans US$130 billion to US$145 billion.

Reality Labs adds its own losses. Reality Labs is the division that makes Meta's headsets and glasses. It has lost roughly US$88 billion since Meta began reporting it separately in late 2020, based on Meta's own quarterly results.

In January, after the division's worst quarter on record, Meta cut hundreds of its jobs. It also put Horizon Worlds, its flagship virtual world, into maintenance mode. In September, it launched new glasses for using virtual reality. So Meta scaled back its virtual world, then kept spending on the hardware to reach it.

Why keep spending? The Times offers two reasons. Reason one: hardware could turn AI, which costs a fortune to run, into something people pay for every month. Reason two, and the big one: data. Privacy researcher Chris Gilliard told the paper that a device which sees and hears what you do is extremely valuable. AI companies need training data from gadgets that travel everywhere with you.

Click a tab to switch charts. Hover over a column, or tap it on a phone, to see its figure.

Who feels the bill

Here is the pattern in the panels. In April to June 2026, sales rose 28% and costs rose 55%. The cash left over for the quarter was US$784 million. Here is who feels that. Tap any line to open it.

Google is building the same kind of system.

Google is building the same system, and it already runs your email

Google plans to bring its Gemini AI to glasses later this year. Samsung and the eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster are making them. They carry a camera, a microphone and speakers, so you can ask Gemini about whatever you are looking at. The Times calls it Google's second attempt, 13 years after Glass.

Google also has something Meta lacks: the office software. In May, Google announced Gemini Spark, which works inside Gmail and Docs. It turns meeting notes scattered across emails and chats into a single document, and it reads and drafts your email. The Gemini app has 900 million active users, about the same as ChatGPT, the Times reports.

Koray Kavukcuoglu is chief technology officer at Google DeepMind, the company's AI lab. He told the paper that feedback from users is "the most important information flow that we have". Here is why that matters. Glasses would give Google that feedback all day, from whatever you look at and ask about. Gilliard's point about data applies to Google as much as to Meta.

Apple is the big name taking a different path.

Apple stays premium

Apple is building wearables too, at premium prices. This month it released a watch that listens to conversations and writes short summaries. Its new chief executive, John Ternus, denied the watch records anything. Apple is reportedly working on camera glasses with stronger privacy protections than Meta's. In June, it raised the price of Vision Pro, its headset, to US$3,699, blaming the cost of memory chips.

My prediction for Apple: it will keep charging premium prices for familiar products and calling them innovation. People will pay, because Apple owns the premium market.

There is a counter-argument. VR.org, a virtual reality industry site, reads the Vision Pro price rise as a play for business buyers. Apple has built business tools into the headset, and companies such as Porsche and the pilot trainer CAE already use it. The same site estimates Apple holds about 5% of the headset market, against roughly 75% for Meta. So Apple can win premium buyers inside big companies. Most office buying comes down to price and whether a product works with existing systems.

Microsoft, Meta and Google take the office

Here is the prediction for business, and it is mine. The corporate market goes to Microsoft, Meta and Google, with their products connected to each other. Microsoft brings Windows, Teams and Office, which already run as web apps and streamed desktops. Meta brings the hardware on your face, at a price businesses can approve. Google brings Gmail, Docs and Gemini.

They connect through the browser and the cloud, the way Office already runs on a Meta headset. A business buyer asks one question before any other: does this work with everything we already pay for? Products that work with Windows, Teams and Gmail pass that test.

How long will that take? The move from desktop computers to phones is a useful guide.

The laptop has five to ten years left

Start with what Meta VR Glasses actually do. They weigh around 100 grams, about the weight of a deck of cards, and connect to the puck. They open several large virtual screens wherever you are, and turn any table or desk into a keyboard and touchpad. You steer with your eyes and hand gestures, or by asking Meta AI out loud. They arrive in spring 2027 with no exact date, and I have found no Australian price.

One detail matters here. One of the headline features is plugging your laptop into the puck, so its screen appears as a giant virtual display. At launch, the glasses work alongside a laptop, as an extra screen. Over time, the screen, keyboard and mouse become virtual, and the computing moves into the puck and then into the cloud.

The phone shows how slow this kind of change is. The iPhone went on sale in 2007. In October 2016, phones and tablets overtook desktop computers in share of web use worldwide for the first time, according to StatCounter. Ten years on, the split has barely moved. In August 2026, StatCounter counted 50.9% of web use on phones and tablets and 49.11% on desktop computers. In Australia, desktop still leads, at 54.36%.

Small screens won entertainment. Big screens kept the work. Glasses give you the big screen anywhere.

So here is the timeline, and it is my prediction. The laptop keeps its job for five to ten years, the same kind of stretch the desktop had after 2007. Glasses take over the screen first, then the keyboard, then the reason to carry a laptop at all. The computer moves into the puck, then the phone, then the cloud, run by Microsoft, Meta and Google.

WALL-E, one step further

In WALL-E, the 2008 Pixar film, humanity lives on a giant cruise spaceship. Everyone glides about on reclining hover chairs with a screen floating in front of their face, and nobody looks at the person beside them. One company runs the ship, sells the food and fills the screens.

The glasses take that one step further. Reason one: the screen moves from in front of your face to on it, so you can take it everywhere. Reason two: the glasses have cameras pointing outward, filming the room around you. Reason three: the companies that make the screens also run the feeds, the email and the messaging apps. Soon they will run the AI agents that do your shopping.

In the film, people sit still in front of their screens. With glasses, the screen goes with you to work, the shops and the train.

The 2014 manners guide, the 2026 kill switch and the 2027 glasses follow one pattern. Each time, a company put a camera on people's faces first, and set the rules for using it later.

What to do before the glasses arrive

Write your glasses rule this week. Shops, cafes, gyms, clinics and salons already meet camera glasses at the door. Decide whether customers may record and put it on a sign. Brief staff on the one tell: a white light on the frame means it is filming. Several UK restaurants, pubs and theatres have banned the glasses outright. Decide now, so staff know what to say when it happens.

Make your product details readable by AI assistants. In 2016, StatCounter's chief executive warned small businesses that many older websites failed on phones. The same shift is starting again. Audio glasses answer questions out loud, and Meta is putting its shopping agent inside its glasses. Write product details in plain, complete sentences an assistant can read aloud: price, size, what it does and how long delivery takes.

Buy your next laptops as normal, and move your work into the browser. Software that runs in a browser or the cloud will follow your staff from laptop to glasses. Software that only runs on one machine stays behind with it. When the glasses land here, give one pair to whoever travels most and see whether they still need the laptop. Before you buy any connected device for staff, ask one question: what can the maker switch off remotely?

Keep your laptops for now. Move your software to the cloud. Train staff to spot the recording light.