The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are among the most interesting, unexpectedly fun, and surprisingly useful wearables I’ve used in 2024. However, as we go into 2025, I’m getting worried about the smart glasses situation.
This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like we’re on the cusp of a new wave of cool smart eyewear products, only to be very disappointed by what came next.
Why the Ray-Ban Meta are so good
I have used the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses alongside my regular glasses for the majority of the year after choosing to put my prescription lenses in them and opting for the transition versions, so they adapt to different lighting conditions. It means I can wear them inside and out, and in all weather conditions — essential here in the normally dreary U.K.
It wasn’t long before I’d fallen for the camera and the way it can capture first-person, hands-free stills and video. It’s really creative, and I use it way more than I expected. The Meta AI features took a while to arrive in the U.K., and while I don’t use them all that often — just like all mobile AI features — they work really well when I ask questions that rely on the camera. The audio functionality is fantastic, and even the battery life is good, with the case holding plenty of additional charge.
The Ray-Ban partnership means the glasses are well designed, look good on different face shapes, and have a strong retail network so you can try them out before buying. Getting prescription lenses was the right move, but the transitions aren’t very good as they don’t really get dark when you’re driving, which has something to do with the coating on car windscreens. They also take a while to switch back to clear. Without a better alternative, I’d still get them again, though. I really like the Ray-Ban Meta and have recommended them to everyone who inquires about them. I’m excited about them and, in turn, excited about the future they could inspire.
What has happened in the past
The Ray-Ban Meta have set the stage for a resurgence in interest in smart glasses as more people discover what they can do and how comfortable and convenient they are to own. The problem is, we’ve been in this situation several times already, but due to various problems, smart glasses have fizzled out and gone nowhere until another company pops up with a decent pair, only to start the cycle over again.
Google Glass was the first big smart eyewear product, and although I loved it, others were not so keen. Whether it was the high price, the geeky look, or the controversial (at the time) camera, Google Glass attracted all the wrong kind of attention when it was released. Google hastily distanced itself from Glass, retiring it as a consumer product and focusing on business use, just like competitors Vuzix and Epson. Snapchat gave it a shot with the Snapchat Spectacles, but they were so limited in functionality that the initial furor around availability soon killed off enthusiasm.
It was several years before companies considered it safe to have another go at smart glasses, and they all stayed far away from the camera when doing so. Instead, we got audio-only smart glasses from Bose, Amazon, Razer, Huawei, and a host of other brands jumping on the bandwagon. Soon, we were swimming in big, heavy, and usually ugly smart glasses with pitiful battery life that were trying to replace our headphones. The trouble was that true wireless earbuds were becoming common, and they were a far better choice. Soon, audio smart glasses faded away, and we were back to where we were before even Glass came along.
Trouble is brewing
Having seen what has happened before, I’m acutely aware of what’s happening to today’s smart glasses, where copycats are already beginning to arrive. The Ray-Ban Meta use AI and its camera to good effect, and other brands are slowly catching up. Solos recently released the AirGo Vision smart glasses, which use AI and have a camera, and newcomer Looktech launched a pair of smart glasses with AI and a camera on Kickstarter. Amazon has its camera-less Echo Frames to chat with Alexa, and Lucyd gives you hands-free ChatGPT access. Smart eyewear from Xreal and TCL don’t count, as they’re not designed to be worn outside in the real world.
The landscape is, unfortunately, evolving in the same way it did with audio-only smart glasses. This time, one brand has got the current smart glasses formula exactly right, and everyone else is content to do something very similar, just without the key backing of an eyewear giant — and the fit and design inevitably suffer. Design hampered smartwatches for years as the tech matured, but because smart glasses are front and center on our faces, design is far more important, and tech brands have no place in coming up with the shape and fit. Meta knew this, and signing up Ray-Ban (owned by mega-corporation Luxottica) to make the glasses while it dealt with the tech was the perfect solution.
What we’re already seeing is knockoff Ray-Ban Wayfarer shapes with the same feature set arriving, and I don’t like that much. Solos is at least trying something new with its modular design, but the smart glasses aren’t all that comfortable to wear.
There are plenty of high-tech alternatives too, but none manage to nail the combination of design, fit, and functionality that appeals to normal people like the Ray-Ban Meta. I know Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses aren’t likely to just fade away as Glass did, and we know Meta has an exciting sequel in the works, but an ocean of subpar or geeky, feature-packed, yet ugly copycats offer nothing at all to the consumer, and certainly won’t drive innovation in style and appeal in a still-emerging product space. That’s what concerns me most.
The beginning, not the end
Is there nothing good on the horizon? I’m somewhat buoyed by what Google is doing with Project Astra. Although the demos show a Ray-Ban Meta alternative, just with Gemini at its heart, the conversational AI really does look impressive and perfectly suits hands-free use. However, there’s no release date for Google’s Project Astra smart glasses at all. Furthermore, the concept may take so long to reach production that it’ll simply evolve into an Android XR headset that competes more with Apple’s Vision Pro rather than being a Ray-Ban Meta competitor. It also appears Samsung will take this direction in 2025.
There are places for full headsets like the Vision Pro and Google’s Android XR, but those places are usually in the home. We’re never realistically going to wear the Vision Pro or similar headsets outside where people can see us, and we’ve seen virtual reality headsets fail to break out of gaming and into the homes of normal people several times already. Whatever they’re called and regardless of what they show on screen, these headsets aren’t the same as smart glasses, and abandoning development in their favor isn’t the right direction to take. Normal people wear, understand, and buy glasses. They don’t do that with headsets.
While it won’t be the end of the world for buyers if the Ray-Ban Meta continue unchallenged because it’s a genuinely great product, but it’ll be a shame for the industry. We’re finally at the point where smart glasses with a camera are acceptable, tech has moved on so they can be light and fairly normal looking, and AI is vaguely useful for once. This should be used as a jumping-off point for further innovation, not an opportunity to boringly make more of the same or to pass the opportunity by and try to make us wear bulky full headsets again instead. History shows this is not a situation we want repeated.
