Ray Ban They are some of the most exciting new lifestyle technologies I have come across while using them in recent years.
I don’t always have my black Meta-Ray-Bans on my face, and there’s a good reason for that. The battery life is not enough and decreases over time. On a recent trip to the UK I used it to go to the beach and got a low battery warning after a long walk in tide pools.
Impressive as smart glasses Battery problems are just some of the problems the technology aims to solve. All signs point to advanced features such as integrated screens and wristbands with gesture controls, which open up new possibilities but also increase price and complexity.
Meta is focused on the glasses. Connect 2025 Conference will take place in a few weeks, from September 17 to 18. What awaits us? What needs to be fixed? This is what I consider… Wave of new AR products Looks like it’s ready to arrive.
What are the screens built into the computer glasses for?
Although bulkier and less practical AR glasses without clear lenses have been available for years (Magic Leap, magic hope 2 and Snap’s Spectacles), complete the current wave of AI smart glasses launched by Meta Ray-Ban displays. Instead of in-lens screens, the integrated audio and camera features provide enough functionality at a lower price and in a smaller size to make the Ray-Ban Metas truly wearable.
But smart glasses with screens are on the way. Some outliers, like Even Realities, were already there. New items like Rokid e-glasses RayNeo X3 Pro They are getting smaller and smaller. Google and Samsung It is expected that sooner or later they will get their own smart glasses with a screen. I tried a demo of the prototype. Late last year and last Google developer conference showed some demonstrations.
Meta will be the next big player. A potential smart glasses with a display called “Hypernova” could do this. It costs around $800 and can be accompanied by a bracelet with gesture recognition (I tried it last year with a couple concept). Orion Meta glasses).
Meta should also have a range of development tools for its next generation glasses, which makes a lot of sense. What are screens for? Most smart glass manufacturers are still trying to answer this question.
AI chat notifications and results, translated subtitles, and contextual navigation for music or map apps are display apps I’ve seen demonstrated before. Reminds me of the Google Glass days.
Unlike USB-C smart display glasses XrealOne AND Viture Luma ProWhile smart glasses with wireless displays that can deliver high-quality video are likely to have lower-quality displays that don’t light up all the time.
And manufacturers of smart glasses don’t just have to worry about functionality and battery life. You also have to be careful with distractions. A pop-up screen on regular glasses can pose a safety hazard, especially while driving. It can also alienate everyday activities and interactions by adding a layer of visualization that interferes with your personal life.
The ball is in your court. We just need the tech giants to show how early displays work and what value they offer compared to more expensive products.
Battery life: how can I improve it (and not degrade it)?
Meta’s second generation Ray-Bans came out almost two years ago and I hope the company announces an update. The problem, however, is that the battery life on the pair I use has decreased over time. The glasses have never lasted so long on a single charge, maybe several hours, half a day at the most. I now notice that with moderate use the battery can die in just over an hour.
Batteries in consumer devices wear out over time as charge cycles expire. I would like to replace or repair the batteries in my Ray-Bans, but it is not possible. I also asked Meta’s head of wearables, Alex Himel: I talked about it earlier this year.. He said: “It’s certainly an issue we want to address, but we don’t have a good solution at the moment.”
Smart glasses mean that you update them every few years. I want to keep a setup that I like and be able to maintain it. Many glasses owners probably feel the same way.
Meanwhile, future smart glasses may see improvements in battery life. Oakley’s latest Meta smart glasses They promise longer battery life compared to previous Ray-Ban Metas, although they should only last around 8 hours on a charge. And if the next-generation smart glasses were to be expanded with additional functions such as screens, the battery life could decrease even further.
Help with recipes: needs improvement
There is a question mark about prescribing smart glasses. I thought the problems would be solved, but I forgot that the lenses on my Ray-Bans are custom made. The Meta Store only supports recipes up to -6.00, which is way below my vision of -8.00.
Snap’s Spectacles – Full AR glasses currently in developer form and planned for release Consumer version next year: I still don’t recommend prescribing supplements that work for my eyes. I’ve had more success with virtual reality headsets lately, many of which often support third-party lens inserts.
Although Meta’s Ray-Bans currently work with standard lenses, that will likely change soon. An expected high-end pair “Ipernova” glasses. from Meta, which could be announced in a few weeks, will have at least one screen in the lens. This could mean that prescription aids will take the form of inserts, similar to VR and AR glasses.
One of the first signs of this future is Rokid Glasses, a pair of AI glasses that will soon hit the market with a screen that I first saw a week ago. Rokid’s $600 solution looks as small as Meta-Ray-Bans and also features a monochrome screen projected onto waveguides etched into the lenses. The prescription holder comes with magnetic clip inserts, which can be ordered separately and are relatively easy to insert (and small enough not to compromise the aesthetic appearance of the glasses).
These prescription inserts give me some hope, because handling bottles for Meta-Ray-Ban is not as easy as I expected. Until opticians make the process easier, the smart glasses industry would be better off outsourcing lenses to an outside source.
I also want better AI, cameras and sound.
That said, it would be great if the next smart glasses did what the current glasses do, but better. Meta Ray-Bans connect exclusively to Meta AI, allowing limited connections to music and calendar apps. To be truly useful, AI glasses need to be as connected to our apps and our lives as our phones.
This type of synchronization requires the trust necessary to enable connections that allow AI to access data or for these glasses to work with multiple AI platforms. If someone does everything via ChatGPT or Gemini, how does it work with Meta Ray-Ban?
I’m impressed with the sound of the Ray-Bans, but too much outside noise can drown out conversations. I don’t know how noise reduction would work on open ear audio glasses, but maybe there is a way. After all, Apple has developed noise reduction for the more open AirPods 4.
The cameras could also be improved. Currently, Ray-Ban only plays in vertical wide-angle mode. I want to zoom and take landscape photos. Zooming in would be a challenge, but shooting in landscape mode would be a welcome addition, or at least a way to avoid shooting everything from such wide angles. And it would be nice to add a second camera for true 3D video, something that could work with the Quest or Apple Vision Pro headsets.
And how is the integrity?
Wearing AI glasses with cameras is already a big red flag for some people. This raises concerns via invisible recordings or spreading panic about conversations and images that AI services can record through your glasses.
Meta is not a company where good answers in the field of data protection are sought. As the glasses become more permanent, the questions will increase. Half I have already deleted a configuration in your phone app, which previously allowed you to disable cloud storage of your voice recordings. If glasses really are, as Mark Zuckerberg and others claim, perfect AI devices, how can they help us better manage privacy? Or do the glasses simply speed up the free flow of continuously collected data?
Meta uses camera shutter sounds and a white LED light to indicate when your smart glasses are taking photos or recording videos. However, these indicators are subtle and not enough to alleviate anxiety.
Here comes the flood of glasses.
I would recommend waiting until the end of the next few months to buy new smart glasses, especially until Meta connection The conference ends. Many new glasses are expected, and even more in 2026.
We get to see how quickly the industry improves with a formula that suddenly turns out to be surprisingly good, or if the growing pains are bigger than we thought.