Why the Ray-Ban Meta could be your best tech purchase of the year...
Every now and then, you’ll see me talking to myself, looking at something intently and then asking questions to no one in particular. I may be accused of some eccentricities, but this isn’t one of them. This is me talking to the Ray-Ban Meta smart-glasses, a doodad I picked up on a recent trip to the US and one I’ve grown inseparably accustomed to in the past few weeks. 
The Ray-Ban Meta: A Unique Smart Glasses Experience
To be clear, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses aren’t a revolutionary concept by themselves. Smart glasses first hit the mainstream (and notoriety) with the Google Glass way back in 2013, and there have many that have followed, from Snap to Bose and even Amazon. 
Sunglasses with a Tech Twist
Let’s start with why. Unlike a lot of previous products which tried to fashion a minicomputer on your face a la the Borg, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses look and feel like regular Ray-Ban sunglasses first, and not a gadget. Even if they’re out of battery, the Wayfarers I picked up continue to serve an actual purpose, the very same purpose Wayfarers have been serving since James Dean and JFK made them popular—protecting your eyes outdoors, while maintaining that classic cool look. 
Enhancing Your Experience with Transition Lenses
Pro tip: unless you need to change the lens to prescription versions (which you easily can), pick up the Ray-Ban Metas with the transition lenses, which retail for about $50 more than the version with regular darkened sunglass lens. 
The Smart Features of Ray-Ban Meta
About that smart bit. Peer closely at either corner, where the rivets are usually found, and you’ll spot the built-in camera and the blinking LED that activates anytime the camera is in use, along with a small capture button on the right temple/arm. What you won’t spot until you wear them are the gesture control bar on the right arm, the hidden microphones and the surprisingly good speakers, the latter for piping music or responses to your voice requests back to you. The speakers are fairly discreet at low volumes but bump up the volume and folks standing close by will be able to hear your calls or taste in music, much as they would if you had your phone volume too high.
Enhanced Photography and Video Capabilities
Of course, the headlining feature is the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera— other than taking 12-megapixel stills, you can record 1440x1920-pixel resolution videos at 30 frames per second.
If you have an offspring—human, feline or canine—that clams up when it sees a phone being pulled out for a photo, this is the perfect solution. It’s also great for all those hands-free situations when you’d rather not be holding up a phone/camera—cooking, scenic drives and the like—the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses capture the moment while letting you stay in the moment. Meta has also designed the smart glasses to work with all of its social apps, so you can live-stream your camera video within WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.
The Power of AI Integration
In 2024, smart isn’t just about ‘connected’, it’s all about… you guessed it, AI. You can use the voice assistant to take photos and videos, listen to respond to WhatsApp messages, and even compose a poem or tell a joke, should you feel that bored. The standout feature is its ability to understand multi-modal inputs – see something through the glasses and ask Meta AI for more information. This is what the Humane AI Pin or the Rabbit R1 promised to deliver, but the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses do so without a fuss. You can look at a sign in a foreign language and ask it to translate or look at a flower and have the AI identify which flower it is.
Long-lasting Battery and Availability
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are a lot of tech packed into very little space, so the first casualty for heavy users will be the battery.
Meta has nailed the execution on the Ray-Ban collaboration, and best of all, while they’re not cheap, they’re not that expensive when compared to a regular pair of Wayfarers. Until the Orion AR glasses come along, the Ray-Ban Metas feel like a happy middle, a very usable AI wearable that doesn’t keep reminding you of its presence. You slip it on just as you would any other pair of sunglasses and use it whenever the need arises. This is the perfect “I didn’t know I needed this" kind of device and after using them thoroughly and discovering just how deep the rabbit hole is, I can’t recommend these enough.
