I was wrong — Oakley's Meta smart glasses actually look better than the Ray-Bans, and they bring massive upgrades

(Image credit: Oakley)

Oakley’s Meta smart glasses are officially here, and I’m left officially eating my own words. You see, given the initial rumor mill, I was nervous we were getting a Meta-fied pair of Sphaera shades — those typical wraparound glasses that are meant for athletes, but a lot of non-athletes wear in a kinda cringe way.

But I’ll always put my hands up when I’m wrong, and not only are the Oakley Meta HSTN (pronounced HOW-stuhn) packed with some serious upgrades over the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, these Performance AI glasses look better too! Let’s get into them.

Sharp looks

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Oakley Meta HSTN Smart Glasses — (Image credit: Meta)

The aesthetics are bold — especially on the Limited-Edition pair that packs gold polarized lenses and a white finish with golden accents. It gives off the classy vibes of rounded-lens shades with some sporty angularity thrown in there too, for good measure.

That makes them a great fit in not only sports, but in social settings too. You also get all the goodness of Oakley PRIZM Lens technology in select glasses, which is a set of dyes added to the lenses that can manipulate light at a molecular level for enhancing vision and boosting contrast for much better clarity.

Given the placement of the tech in the front 60% of the arms of the glasses, it looks as if there’s a comfortable, secure wrap around the ears to keep these locked on your face in more strenuous activities.

Significant upgrades

I love the Ray-Ban Metas, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. I do have two small frustrations with them. First, the battery life — with very light use, you can get them to last 3-4 hours. But if you go hard, that stamina drains fast.

And second, while that 12MP camera is stellar for photos, but the 1080p video can lack some of that razor-sharp clarity I look for in editing.

Well, the Oakleys fix these two with the ability to capture 3K video — grabbing those winning moments in a higher resolution — and a reported doubling of the typical use battery life. Meta is claiming up to eight hours with 19 hours on standby! With the charging case, you’re getting up to 48 hours while out and about.

Aside from that, you’re getting all the other things you know and love, such as the beasty open-ear speakers for tunes while you train, alongside that IPX4 water resistance. At that level, you’ll be fine with training in wet weather conditions!

Your own personal coach

And that’s when the Meta AI magic comes into focus. Currently in Ray-Ban Metas, you’ve got a pretty helpful all-around assistant with vision AI capabilities via the camera. But here, the assistant is able to help provide actionable advice to up your sporting performance.

For example, if you’re golfing, you can ask Meta AI how strong the wind is, in order to angle your shot correctly. We’ve seen sports-centric smart glasses in the past, but this is the first pair I’ve seen with really thoughtful implementations like this.

Yep, I’m an Oakleys fan now

Not the Dadcore specs I was expecting, and you best believe I really want a pair! You’ll be able to snag a pair in six different finishes starting at $399. Those Limited-Edition Oakleys are $499, and available for pre-order starting July 11, whereas the rest will be dropping later this summer.

All are RX-ready, which means the lenses are removable/replaceable, and you can pop in prescription lenses too! With how sick these look, I’ll happily admit I was wrong. The HSTNs pack plenty of upgrades into a seriously sleek shell that is fashionable in all circumstances.

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Jason brings a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.

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