Meta launches $399 Oakley AI Glasses with 3K video recording

Los Angeles Times

4 hours ago

Meta Platforms Inc. is going up-market with its surprise hit smart glasses, rolling out new models with Oakley that are aimed at athletes and include improved video recording.
The company on Friday launched new models based on Oakley's HSTN design, marking the company's first expansion away from Ray-Ban for its display-free glasses. Like the original models, the Oakley versions can make and take phone calls, play music, take pictures and video and use Meta's artificial intelligence to answer questions about the surrounding environment.
The new versions, which start at $399 and go up to $499 for a limited edition model with gold-colored accents, include about double the battery life, video-recording at 3K resolution and water resistance.
'We are increasingly seeing performance use cases with the Ray-Bans like people wearing them on roller coasters, cycling and being around water, so we're trying to lean into that,' says Alex Himel, the company's vice president in charge of wearables, in an interview.
Arriving at its second glasses brand was far from a sure thing. Meta's first glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories, flopped in 2021. But its follow-up version in 2023 was a massive success, giving the social networking giant a real potential hardware stronghold in the artificial intelligence race.
'It was crazy. Popularity caught us by surprise a bit,' Himel said. The Ray-Bans were 'going to be the last display-less pair of glasses. We said we'll take two swings at it, and if it doesn't work we'll go all-in on augmented reality.'
Instead, beyond the latest Oakley model, the company has a multi-year road map for the display-less category and is planning a follow-up pair of Oakley glasses based on the Sphera design for later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That pair will be aimed at cyclists and have a centered camera. Friday's model has a camera positioned in the upper corner like the Ray-Ban version.
The display-free glasses are one component of the overall Meta AI hardware strategy. The company is planning to introduce higher-end glasses with a display to view notifications and the camera view finder later this year, Bloomberg News has reported. In 2027, it aims to roll out its first true augmented reality glasses, which will blend digital apps with the real world.
Meta's form-factor has caught on, with several other technology companies working on competitors. Apple Inc. is planning to introduce its first glasses product at the end of 2026, Bloomberg News has reported. That device will operate similarly to the Meta product but better synchronize with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Amazon.com Inc. also sells glasses, but their current models lack cameras.
Himel, who said Meta has sold millions of glasses and has a 'nice, increasing multiple' of purchases on a year-over-year basis each week, attributed the increased popularity to the Ray-Bans improving across a large number of 'small things.' He said the audio quality and microphones started to surpass standalone earbuds, while the camera and AI quality also improved.
Still, Himel said battery life remains the 'number one complaint' about the Ray-Ban versions. The new Oakley models can run for 8 hours on a single charge, with the charging case holding 48 hours of juice. 'You should expect a 40% bump with these' he says, attributing the improvement to new battery chemistry and software optimizations — not larger battery packs.
Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is owned by EssilorLuxottica SA, which calls Oakley its second most popular brand after Ray-Ban. Himel said Meta will roll out new brands under the EssilorLuxottica portfolio 'as fast as we can. 'We're going to have to move very quickly because in the world of fashion, stuff moves very quickly,' he says. 'The stuff that is a hit right now might not be a year from now. We need to be fast to hit all the brands that we'd like to.'
The first Oakley model, becoming available for pre-order on July 11, will be the $499 limited edition pair. The $399 versions — which come in grey, black, brown and clear colors — will be released in the coming months. There will be versions with clear, transition and polarized lenses. Like with the Ray-Bans, users can swap the lenses for prescription optics.
The glasses will be available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, according to Meta.
(Updated with availability of new smart glasses in several countries. A previous version corrected the name of Meta executive Alex Himel.)
Gurman writes for Bloomberg.