5 Meta Ray-ban Upgrades That Have Me Seriously Excited For September 17

1 week ago

Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses (blue shades)

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The hype continues to build astir nan presence of Meta's futuristic Hypernova (a.k.a. Celeste) smart glasses, which will reportedly adhd a mini heads-up show successful 1 oculus and a neural wristband (Ceres) to power nan interface. These will reportedly costs astir $800 and will beryllium announced astatine Meta Connect connected September 17. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has stated that Meta is preparing to waste 150,00-200,000 units of its Hypernova glasses complete nan adjacent 2 years.

Some person moreover started calling these nan adjacent type of nan existent Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. However, some Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Andrew Bosworth person been teasing that Meta will merchandise aggregate products successful nan smart glasses abstraction this fall.

And nan CEO of EssilorLuxotica (maker of Ray-Bans), Francesco Milleri, said successful early 2025 that complete 2 cardinal units of Meta Ray-Bans had already been sold and that nan institution was preparing to standard up to waste 10 cardinal units annually by nan extremity of 2026.

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All of that points to an upgraded type of nan $300 audio-only Meta Ray-Bans coming this autumn -- and being announced alongside nan future-oriented Hypernova glasses astatine Meta Connect.

For nan past 2 years, I've been a regular personification of nan Meta Ray-Bans for audio calls, listening to podcasts and music, and taking photos. I'll beryllium astatine Meta Connect successful personification connected September 17 to spot and demo everything Meta unveils. Here is nan database of applicable upgrades that would make Meta's AI glasses moreover much useful and usable.

1. Double nan artillery life

The Meta Ray-Bans are officially rated for 4 hours of artillery life. However, if you move disconnected nan always-on listening for nan "Hey Meta" punctual (and long-press nan correct stem to activate it instead), you tin summation that beautiful significantly. That's existent if you're utilizing nan smart glasses mostly for telephone calls, listening to audio, and possibly a fewer AI prompts.

Also: We tested nan champion AR and MR glasses: Here's really nan Meta Ray-Bans stack up

However, erstwhile you commencement taking a bunch of photos and signaling aggregate videos, nan artillery tin wholly drain successful arsenic small arsenic 1 to 2 hours. Of course, you tin popular them backmost successful nan lawsuit and complaint them to 50% successful astir 20 minutes aliases get a afloat complaint successful a small complete an hour. Meta claims you tin get 8 afloat charges of nan glasses from a afloat charged case.

But what nan Meta Ray-Bans request is artillery life much connected nan level of nan Meta Oakley smart glasses released successful July 2025. They are rated by Meta for 8 hours of artillery life, and early reports from reviewers propose that they are lasting 3 to 4 hours nether dense video and photograph use. Since we cognize that benignant of artillery life is imaginable successful a akin product, that's nan benignant of longevity we should expect successful nan caller Meta Ray-Bans.

2. Shoot horizontal photos and videos

The Meta Ray-Bans' astir pleasant astonishment erstwhile they launched successful 2023 turned retired to beryllium nan viability of nan photos and videos -- which ended up being nan balanced of a smartphone camera from 3-4 years earlier. In different words, thing on nan lines of an iPhone 11 aliases 12 camera.

But erstwhile we each figured retired that these photos were amazingly usable -- and that it was ace adjuvant to beryllium capable to return photos without pulling retired our phones -- we quickly ran into nan camera's biggest drawback. It only shoots successful vertical / image mode.

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Sure, you tin hack this by simply turning your caput 90 degrees perpendicular to nan crushed and past clicking nan shutter connected your glasses. But nary 1 wants to beryllium doing that each nan time, and it defeats nan intent of having an unobtrusive camera. No, what nan adjacent Meta Ray-Bans request is nan action to sprout horizontal photos and videos. That will dramatically summation nan usability and usefulness of these smart glasses for capturing content.

3. Add audio note-taking

A characteristic that nan Meta Ray-Bans don't presently have, but you tin find connected different smart glasses, is nan action to grounds a speedy audio note. For example, nan Even Realities G1 are a brace of smart glasses that connection this functionality today.

It would beryllium terrific to trigger Meta AI to return a note, and past you could speak and person nan audio captured while an LLM does speech-to-text conversion and saves some nan audio and nan matter to a statement that you tin easy entree connected your phone.

Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses (clear blue)

4. Increase camera quality

The camera connected nan Meta Ray-Bans is 12MP and shoots photos successful a 3x4 facet ratio pinch a solution of 3024 x 4032 pixels. It captures video astatine astir 1080p value and a solution astir 1376 x 1840. When they launched successful 2023, that camera value was respectable.

However, telephone cameras person taken immoderate large leaps guardant successful nan past 2 years. And those of america who person taken tons of photos and videos connected nan Meta Ray-Bans person tally into nan limitations of nan older camera sensor. It would beryllium adjuvant to person a camera that has amended low-light capabilities, and higher solution video would beryllium terrific truthful that we tin harvest in.

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Since nan Meta Oakley glasses launched precocious pinch 3K video (typically astir 2300 x 3100 pixels), that offers dream that nan third-gen Meta Ray-Bans will connection astatine slightest 3K video arsenic well. Photo solution remained nan aforesaid connected nan Meta Oakley glasses. It would beryllium awesome to spot that upgraded connected nan Meta Ray-Bans 3.0 -- though that would besides make nan files larger and slower to transfer, but we'll talk astir that next.

5. Improve photograph and video transfers

One of nan astir awkward usability challenges pinch nan Meta Ray-Bans has been transferring nan photos and videos you seizure connected nan glasses to your phone. You person to person your telephone link to nan glasses arsenic your Wi-Fi connection, and past it makes nan record transportation and disconnects. The Meta package tries to streamline and automate this, but you still person to do it each clip you make a record transfer. This is clunky astatine champion and is besides prone to failing occasionally.

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It would beryllium overmuch amended if nan next-gen Meta Ray-Bans utilized a exertion specified arsenic Wi-Fi Direct aliases a operation of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6e, for illustration nan Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 spot that will powerfulness early Samsung/Google glasses. This would let nonstop transfers of photos and videos without having to do nan awkward Wi-Fi relationship creation that nan existent Meta Ray-Bans person to do. In general, it would simply make nan glasses fresh to beryllium much of a full-time accessory alternatively than a instrumentality only utilized occasionally.

Final word

The are different things I'd emotion to spot successful nan adjacent type of nan audio-only Meta Ray-Bans -- for illustration a waterproofing upgrade from IPX4, support for much languages successful Live Translation, a charging action for erstwhile you're still wearing nan glasses, and nan action to usage a virtual adjunct to grounds calls and meetings and make notes and summaries.

But if Meta were to merge nan 5 features mentioned supra into their adjacent procreation of audio smart glasses, past I fishy they'd find a batch much than 10 cardinal group who are willing successful wearing them.