Meta
Audio By Carbonatix
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage on Wednesday night in Menlo Park for Meta Connect 2025. Leading up to this year’s Connect there were rumors and even some leaks about which tech would possibly be debuted but the major takeaway from Connect 2025 was Mark and Meta’s announcement this year was everything Apple wished and hoped it had done with theirs last week.
I was sitting about 50 feet from Zuckerberg during last year’s Connect when he debuted Orion with the understanding that it would be ‘years away’ from deployment, and while the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses aren’t Orion, they are the first AI glasses with a neural band enabling smart gestures in real life that allow you to interface with the screen in your glasses in a way that we have only ever seen in Sci-Fi movies until now.
Meta Ray-Ban Display, New Ray-Bans, Oakley’s Steal The Show At Meta Connect 2025
I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this is revolutionary. The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses feature a a full-color, high-resolution display within the lenses and the price point is incredible, starting at just $799.
Zuckerberg’s keynote speech began with him sitting on a couch and suddenly we were transported inside of the glasses he was wearing and got his full view as he walked out onto the stage in Menlo Park at Meta’s HQ. From there, he took us through the future of the company’s glasses and how wearables, specifically smart glasses, will be changing the way we live our lives in the years ahead. Here’s that walkout view form the glasses:
That looks and feels like J.A.R.V.I.S., right? The Tony Stark AI from The Avengers. I’d say that Mark saw that and was like ‘yup, we need to make that real’ but the reality is they’ve been working on this technology for a LONG time and leaps and bounds in recent years have brought it to market.
Smart Gestures, Silent Interactions, Reminders, Visual Responses, And More
With the new Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses you can talk to it (it? them? they? what is it?) in real-time and get answers on your screen and through the speakers.
With the Meta Neural Band worn on your wrist, you can use silent gestures to interact with the glasses. This can be as simple as launching Spotify to give your friend ‘walk out music’ like Mark did for Boz on stage during his keynote on Wednesday. Or it can be configuring your digital space within the glasses, turning on real-time closed captions in conversations, translations in other languages, and plenty more.
The step-by-step guidance will actually be huge for someone like myself. Whether it be in the kitchen where I follow recipe’s to the t without ever straying or while building something in the garage like assembling my 12ft giant skeleton for Halloween, the step-by-step instructions walk you through it with the digital interface aiding you at each step.
‘Life Reminders’ at first sounded silly to me but by the time Mark was done talking about it, and then they showed a video of it in action, I think this might actually be the most useful feature for someone like myself.
If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t exist. I’m very much ‘living in the now’ at all times and get scatterbrained with things I did throughout the day. With Life Reminders, you can set reminders to revisit things, to have something further explained, to follow-up, to set calendar reminders, to double check on whether an action was completed, and so on and so forth. I will inevitably use this feature all day every day once I buy these glasses.
Here they are in action:
New Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 + Oakley
I wear my Meta Ray-Bans every day. I’m big on podcasts and audiobooks and use the glasses constantly to be able to listen and learn while going about my normal day. I’ve got the sunglasses and transition lenses so I can wear them everywhere.
The video + camera function is awesome. I ran into Jimmy Fallon on the street around this time last year and snapped a picture of him and my son yucking it up with my glasses. It was great. But they could be better, and now they are.
With Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2, the current line of Meta Ray-Ban Glasses now have a smart display within the lenses. They can do real-time language translation.
They have a ‘conversation focus’ feature where if you are in a crowded area it can hone in on the person you are speaking to so that you can hear them clearer and block out the surrounding noise. That’s a borderline superpower feature right there for people who live and work in crowded areas.
With the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2, we get 2x the battery life of the previous versions, faster charging, and they have added 3K Ultra HD video capture. So now the video + photo features really are worth it. We’re talking about an incredibly powerful camera tucked discretely into your smart glasses.
That same camera also now features slow motion and hyperlapse so you can film different styles of videos on the go. As an aging millennial who has used and abused the timeplapse feature on my iPhone throughout the years just to post on Instagram, this is a feature I know I’ll love. These new glasses start at $379 and are available for purchase immediately.
Oakley Meta Vanguard
The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses are new to the lineup and perfect for anyone who lives life to the extreme. Mark said he recently took a call from a Jet-Ski wearing these.
Specifically, these are built for high-intensity sports and have Garmin and Strava integration to capture moments like milestones on a run, personal bests, speed goals, and other moments of that nature during a workout session.
The Oakleys have water-resistant frames with an IP67 dust and water resistance rating, so they can get wet. Mark said he wore them surfing though I wouldn’t recommend that just to be safe.
They have 36 hours of added battery life from the charging case, six hours of continuous audio playback, and 9 hours of battery life on continual use without a charge. The Oakleys launch on October 21st and will retail for $499.