Meta's been adding tech to glasses for the last few years now, in partnership with Ray-Ban and Oakley. It's now launched a new range of smart glasses with AI smarts on board, sans those brand names.
The Meta Glasses feature largely the same hardware as the 2nd-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses: the same cameras, mics, and speakers, and as with that previous lineup, they don't get a screen in the lenses. You can, however, choose from 26 combinations of style, colorways, and materials, in three different shapes. They also get a lower price tag, with options starting at US$299.
Slip these on, and you can shoot 3K/30-fps videos and photos with a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. You can ask Meta AI about anything (like you would with ChatGPT) and even about what you're looking at in real life. And you can take calls, and stream music and podcasts with a voice command. There's also a new Action button to discreetly invoke the AI or trigger a preset feature.
There are three main styles to pick from. The Adventurer is a classic rectangular design that should appeal to most folks; the Fury is a slightly louder take on it. There's also Meta Glasses by Kylie, a slim oval frame designed in collaboration with model Kylie Jenner that unlocks her voice for AI assistance, for $100 more.
The Glasses offer 8 hours of battery life; their included charging case adds another 40 hours. You can also get a charging stand to leave around your house. For audio, you've got open-ear speakers, and a wind-noise-reducing 6-mic array for calls and voice commands. There's 32 GB of onboard storage, which is said to be enough for more than 1,000 photos or 100 30-second videos.
You can order the Glasses with prescription lenses, which add $100 at a minimum; you'll pay extra for transition lenses, and even more if you want thin lenses.
Okay, so there's not much that's especially new here. But these are the first glasses to feature AI powered by Muse Spark, the company's powerful multimodal reasoning model that was released in April. That should make for smarter responses than you might have gotten with previous generations of Meta's eyewear.
The firm promises this AI model will offer improved "answers on everything from sports scores to local restaurant picks, better understand what you’re seeing, and help manage your daily life effortlessly – whether you’re building healthy habits, managing your calendar, or navigating a busy schedule hands-free."
The idea with these glasses is to make Meta AI accessible without the need to whip out your phone. You can ask it anything with a wake word, play music or audiobooks from Spotify and Audible, and even fire up a soundtrack for whatever sort of place and time you're in at that moment. Plus, if you're sporting a Garmin fitness wearable, you can get a summary of your current workout stats, compare your performance with previous sessions, and other insights.
Meta promises additional features are coming down the pipeline soon: turn-by-turn walking directions to get around town, 14 new languages in real-time translation mode (making for more than 20 in total), and the ability to snap multiple photos during a special moment and automatically recommend the best frame out of the lot.
With those features in tow, the Meta Glasses could make a compelling case for themselves at this price point. Meta is arguably the most popular brand for this type of wearable in the US right now, but others like Tecno and Rokid – whose glasses include a head-up display for live captions and notifications in your field of vision (review coming soon) – could catch up with differentiated offerings.
If you're in the US, you can try on Meta Glasses at Meta Lab stores before you buy a pair. They're available starting today from Meta's site, Best Buy, and other retailers; they should arrive on Amazon soon too.
Check out the Meta Glasses here. And if you're keen on wearing more tech on your face, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses pack more tech and features, including a wristband for gesture-based control.
Source: Meta
