Meta Ray Ban Sunglasses
Production image of the Wayfarer variant
Google Glass was a concept that was ahead of its time back in 2010. Modern smartphones were a new concept, and the idea that you could surreptitiously photograph or video someone gave most of the public the heebie-jeebies. It was also expensive, niche and on the market for only a year, just like most of Google’s chat apps.
Fast forward to today, and Meta, in collaboration with Ray Ban, have released the Meta Ray Ban Sunglasses. Catchy name.
This is simply a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses (in my case I went for the Wayfarer) with a battery, speakers, touch control, microphone, light sensor, and camera sensor. Wow, when you list every item like that, it’s a lot to jam into a glasses frame. Options include transition or clear lenses, and they can even hold prescription lenses.
So what do they do? Well with the “power of Meta AI” you can invoke all sorts of things, but I turned that crap off. I use them to listen to podcasts while walking the dog (the speakers are excellent), or taking photos and videos when I can’t use my phone easily, such as hiking or on the scooter.
The camera itself is very wide, so you’re not going to be snooping on people from afar, and strangely vertical. I prefer a wide landscape framing as it matches my own field of view, but the youths of today prefer vertical for their TikToks. A quick press of the button takes a slightly delayed photo, and pressing the button for a second will start the video capture for up to 3 minutes.
The speakers are nice and clear, and loud enough to hear while outside with light traffic, but I wouldn’t be trying to hear anything while walking across Sydney Harbour Bridge though. Battery life is also excellent, and it doubles if you disable the “Hey Meta” wake word. SO another reason to turn that off. You also have a number of different voices in different accents, and some AI generated official celebrity voices such as Dame Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, John Cena and Awkwafina (I had to look that up tog et the spelling correct). I had Dame Judi for a while, but now bounce between Kristen and John as it feels like I’m being scolded by her for being a naughty boy.
The trillion dollar elephant in the room is Meta. I’m not a fan of their software products, or their privacy policies, so I have a lot of stuff turned off such as background downloads, location tracking and “Hey Meta”. But, damn if they don’t make nice hardware here. They’re slightly heavier than Wayfarers, but not noticeably so. And you likely wouldn’t realise these were the Meta version if you didn’t know to look for the little circles either side of the lenses.
The images they take are quite nice also. Here is a comparison shot between my sunglasses and my iPhone 16 Pro. The Ray Bans are slightly wider than the iPhone’s wide angle lens, and it always adds a slight blue cast in snowy environments. Still, if you phone is tucked away in your ski gear and you see a nice view, these will do the trick very nicely.
Meta Ray Ban Sunglasses
iPhone 16 Pro
At around $450 Australian dollary-dos, they’re not too much more expensive than Ray Bans’ own product without all the electronics tucked away inside. Even though these are a meta product, I do in fact recommend them. Hopefully Apple does a version one day themselves.
