Meta’s Neural Band Can Finally Let You Handwrite on Your Pants

January 6, 2026

Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses and their gesture-sensing neural band promised a future where we’d be writing out messages on our legs with our fingers. I saw Meta’s team doing this last year, but I never got to try it myself. Now, if you have the glasses and band, you could try it too. Meta announced the news Tuesday along with info on a proof-of-concept smart car integration with Garmin that I demoed here at CES.

Support for handwriting recognition with a finger is rolling out in early access now to Ray-Ban Display glasses, which should give another option to responding to messages in the glasses besides voice dictation. My handwriting is terrible, and I’d prefer some sort of magic air-typing. But that doesn’t exist yet, although Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth suggested to me it could be in the cards someday.

Watch this: My Life With Meta Ray-Ban Displays: A Weird Wild Future

The handwriting feature could work on any surface, according to Meta, like a desk (or your leg), but it’s only English-supported for now, and only works with Messenger and WhatsApp. The new feature is part of several new glasses updates, including a new teleprompter mode and support for pedestrian navigation in more US cities (32 now) using the built-in map app.

But don’t expect to try this outside the US anytime soon. Meta’s paused the international release of Ray-Ban Display glasses for now, citing extremely limited inventory and long waiting lists in the US. 


Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

 

Search

RECENT PRESS RELEASES