Meta Platforms rises category with its surprising smart glasseslaunching new models with Oakley that are aimed at athletes and include improved video recording.
The company launched new models based on the HSTN design of Oakley, which marks the company’s first expansion beyond Ray-BAN for its glasses without screen. Like the original models, Oakley’s versions allow you to make and receive calls, play music, take photos and videos, and use the artificial intelligence of the finish line to answer questions about the environment.
The new versions, which begin at US $ 399 and reach up to US $ 499 for a limited editing model with gold -colored details, They include approximately double battery duration, video recording with 3K resolution and water resistance.
“We are seeing more and more high performance cases with the Ray-Ban, as people who use them in Russian mountains, By bicycle and near the water, so we are trying to take advantage of that, “says Alex Himel, vice president of the company in charge of Wearables, in an interview.
The arrival of his second glasses was nothing safe. The first finish glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories, failed in 2021. But his next version, launched in 2023, was a resounding success, which gave the social networks giant a true potential bastion in the artificial intelligence market.
“It was crazy. Popularity caught us a little by surprise,” Himel said. The Ray-Ban were going to be the last glasses without screen. We said that we would try twice, and if it didn’t work, we would play everything with augmented reality.
On the other hand, beyond the latest Oakley model, The company has a multiannual roadmap for the category of glasses without screen and plans to launch a new version of Oakley glasses based on Sphera design by the end of this year, according to people with knowledge of the topic. These glasses will be aimed at cyclists and will have a centered camera. Friday’s model has a camera located in the upper corner, as is the Ray-Ban version.
The glasses without screen are a component of the General Strategy of Meta AI. The company plans to launch high -end glasses with notifications and the camera viewer at the end of this year, Bloomberg News reported. In 2027, he intends to launch his first glasses of augmented reality, which will integrate digital applications with the real world.
The goal format has gained popularity, and several other technology companies are developing competitors. Apple plans to present its first glasses at the end of 2026, Bloomberg News reported. This device will work similar to goal, but will be better synchronized with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Amazon.com also sells glasses, but its current models lack camera.
Himel, who said that Meta has sold millions of glasses and records a multiple of purchases that grows year after year every week, attributed the growing popularity to the improvement of the Ray-Ban in many aspects. He added that the quality of the audio and the microphones began to overcome the individual headphones, while the quality of the camera and the AI also improved.
Even so, Himel said that the battery life is still the main complaint about Ray-Ban’s versions. The new Oakley models can work for 8 hours with a single load, and the load case offers 48 battery hours. “It is expected an increase of 40 % with these,” he says, attributing this improvement to the new chemical composition of the battery and software optimizations, not to larger batteries.
Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is owned by Essiloruxotica SA, who considers Oakley his second most popular brand after Ray-Ban. Himel said Meta will launch new brands under the essiloruxotic portfolio “as quickly as possible.” “We will have to act very quickly because in the fashion world, things move very fast,” he says. “What is a success now might not be in a year. We need to be fast to reach all the brands we want.”
The first Oakley model, available to preordinate from July 11, will be the limited edition of $ 499. The $ 399 versions, available in gray, black, brown and transparent, will be launched in the coming months. There will be versions with transparent, transition and polarized lenses. As with the Ray-BAN, users can change the lenses for graduated lenses.
Glasses will be available in The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, according to goal.
