Meta held its annual Meta Connect event keynote today, hosted by Meta CEO and standard human Mark Zuckerberg. Included in its event were new smartglasses, including the new Meta Ray-Ban Display smartglasses that actually feature a built-in display, along with a pair of Oakley-branded “Meta Vanguard” smartglasses that wrap around your face and feature a dead-center camera.
The Ray-Ban Display features a heads-up-display embedded within the right-hand lens. The company teased them at the start of the presentation, seemingly livestreaming a video from Zuckerberg’s point of view as he walked to the event stage, with overlays showing things like his currently playing music and people sending text messages and images to him. Describing them later, he said they’re the first smartglasses with a high-resolution display – they show images at 42 pixels per degree, a measure of pixel density in VR headsets – and that it’s large enough to watch a video or read messages. Things like text messages will appear for a few seconds before disappearing, and you can look at pictures you’ve just taken with them. Naturally, they’re AI-powered, so you can chat with Meta AI through them. They’re not full-on AR, so you won’t see the words on street signs morph or peoples’ names appear above their heads, Cyberpunk 2077-style, but they’re a step in that direction.
The Ray-Ban Display can be controlled with a new wristband device, called the Neural Band, that can interpret subtle movements from your hand. As part of that, Zuckerberg used his hand to mimic writing words out on a hard surface, generating text messages during a live demo. The company has been working on surface electromyography (sEMG) tech to pull off such a trick. The band’s capability is similar to Apple Watch gestures like tapping your thumb and forefinger together to do basic things like answer calls. Time will tell how accurate it actually is in practice, but it looked impressive in an otherwise somewhat fraught demo that included Zuckerberg failing to answer a phone call.
Featuring that display is not without compromises. As seen in Meta’s demo of its Orion glasses last year, these new Ray-Bans need a lot more hardware to make a display work, and all that electronic junk has to go somewhere. That means very chunky frames that are 20 grams heavier than their screen-less predecessor, although Meta clearly did its best to move as much as it could to the temples. It’ll be key for the company to have balanced this right, as those sensitive to weight might not be able to stand them. They may not look out of place on your standard Jeff Goldblum head, but for the average person who isn’t used to calling that much attention to their face or bearing that much weight on their nose and ears, they’ll test just how adeptly life, uh, finds a way. The Ray-Ban Display will come in two colors – black and tan – and will be available September 30th for $799.
Then there are the Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses. They look more utilitarian than the existing Oakley Meta HSTN, departing from the Ray-Ban-like frames and taking on a sportier, wraparound design with bright, reflective tint and a big camera embedded in the center. The idea here is that these would be better for folks like cyclists, who might want a centered camera for taking video of their workouts, and value blocking sunlight in their peripheral vision too. The Oakleys are up for preorder now and will be available starting October 21st, for $499.
Zuckerberg also showed off new 2nd generation Ray-Ban Meta, which record video at 3K resolution using a 12MP ultrawide camera. They’ve got twice the battery life of the first-gen versions – the company says up to 8 hours on a charge, with a charging case that extends that by 48 hours. He also showcased new features such as Conversation Focus, which he said can amplify the voice of someone you’re talking with – in a busy restaurant, for example. The feature doesn’t work automatically; you have to pause your conversation and ask Meta AI to activate Conversation Focus. (Nothing awkward about that!)
He also talked about Live AI, which he said wearers can use for about an hour as its own conversation partner. In a demonstration, someone asked Meta AI to help him make a “Korean-inspired steak sauce,” then as it started telling him what to do, he interrupted it to ask what he should do first. The demo fell apart here, with Meta AI telling him he’d already combined some ingredients, and what to do next. (Zuckerberg and the demonstrator blamed the issue on bad Wi-Fi.) The 2nd-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses start at $379 and are available now.
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Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom’s Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.
