Smart glasses won me over, and this is the pair that did It
Meta’s Ray-Bans and its prototype Orion hint at the future of smart glasses—sleek, stylish and truly wearable.
It was a perfect August day for mini golf with the kids. The sun was shining, the windmills were spinning. Then came the sudden plummet into despair: I had forgotten my Ray-Ban Meta camera sunglasses.
I was forced to hold up my phone to take photos…like some Victorian-era photographer hunched over a giant wooden camera box.
This was the year smart glasses won me over. These lighter-weight face computers are the next step in how we interact with each other and our surroundings. This isn’t virtual-reality or a detour to the metaverse—you see the real world, just with digital stuff in it. And you look at your phone a lot less.
You’d think it was the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro that convinced me of this. But nope. After its January launch, that headset spent months enjoying downtime in my attic. I love how it places digital info onto the real world, just not enough to tolerate the weight of a watermelon on my head.
What did it for me was the $299-and-up Ray-Bans, from the maker of Facebook and Instagram.
“I wouldn’t call them a face computer," Alex Himel, Meta’s vice president of wearables, told me. “There’s an analogy—an escalator doesn’t break. It becomes stairs. When these run out of battery, they’re still a beautiful looking pair of glasses."
He’s right. That’s why I wear them outside almost daily. The glasses I thought would be a flash in the pan have become one of the most successful tech products in years—simple, affordable and technically well-designed.
But how do we get from Ray-Bans to a Vision Pro-level experience without sacrificing what makes them great? For some hints, I got a preview of a futuristic prototype Meta is working on, and tips on the company’s next eyewear, expected in 2025.
What’s here
Today’s devices sit at opposite ends of a spectrum—what I call the Face Computing Matrix in the video above.
Dumb smart glasses: At the low-bulk, low-power end are regular-looking glasses with limited processing and capabilities, most notably the Ray-Ban Metas. They’ve got a camera, mics and speakers for snapping photos and video, listening to music or podcasts and chatting with Meta AI. You can get them as sunglasses or prescription frames—yes, even with transition indoor/outdoor lenses.
There’s no screen or onboard computer; they rely on a Bluetooth connection to your smartphone. One of my biggest gripes is that they often unpair from the phone and the Meta View app. Battery life could also be better.
For me, the camera is the winning element. I can snap photos of my kids without getting distracted by notifications. Plus, it’s great for capturing a first-person view of two-handed activities like skiing, biking, driving, tubing, golfing. (I’m sure that golfer vision is how Mark Zuckerberg pitched it to Donald Trump when giving him a pair recently at Mar-a-Lago.)
Mixed-reality headsets: At the powerful but bulky end are mixed-reality headsets, e.g. Apple Vision Pro or Meta Quest 3. These devices are full-fledged computers with screens, letting you see the world in front of you with an overlaid digital interface. You can game, work, message, watch and browse. The front-facing cameras track your hand movements, so you can navigate the interface with just pinches and gestures in the air.
All that tech crammed inside makes these headsets big and bulky. Even though Apple took the battery out of the Vision Pro and stuck it on a cord, after an hour or two, it still feels like your neck is auditioning for a role as a coat rack. And since these need cameras to show you the world, they’re basically ultra-heavy sleep masks when turned off.
What’s coming
We really want something in the middle—something similar to Meta Orion, an augmented-reality eyewear prototype the company has started showing off in private demos.
I got to try out the chunky, Buddy Holly-style Orion frames in a secret room at Meta’s California headquarters. Looking through them is like looking through a regular pair of glasses, until the in-lens holographic projectors light up. Then it’s similar to using a mixed-reality headset.
A menu floats in front of you, apps hover in your space and your eyes become the cursor. Just look at something, then pinch your thumb and index finger to select it. Instead of using cameras for finger and hand navigation, a sensor wristband detects electrical signals generated by muscle contractions. The brains of the operation—processor, RAM, etc.—live in a wireless “compute puck" that connects to the glasses.
During the demo, I played a game, scrolled websites, video-chatted with someone and used AI to scan ingredients to generate a recipe. Remember how I used the Vision Pro to put virtual cooking timers over my stove? Augmented reality’s killer app is cooking. I’m going to die on this delicious hill.
The whole demo was like seeing the future, but with lots of asterisks. The image quality was grainy, it felt sluggish compared to bulkier headsets and the software just didn’t work at times. Another minor detail: Each prototype costs $10,000 to make.
“We want to dial in the manufacturing and bring down the cost so that they’re easier to scale and more affordable," Himel said.
What’s next
What Meta’s doing with Orion is what every other big tech company is doing in their own labs. Apple’s Tim Cook has said the Vision Pro is just the first step—but that company famously doesn’t show off prototypes. Last week, Google began previewing glasses with Android XR, a headset interface. Snap has Spectacles, which it released to software developers.
Meta says a device like Orion will be out in the next few years. Before we land on that sweet spot, we’re going to edge toward it.
The company is working on a pair of Ray-Ban-like glasses with a single small in-lens screen, expected in 2025, according to a person familiar with the project. Meta also plans to release a version of the sensor wrist band.
While Meta didn’t confirm the heads-up-display glasses, Himel said the most requested Ray-Ban features are a viewfinder and pop-up smartphone notifications. The company is working on different display technologies and multiple “sizes and form factors," he added.
Yes, face-computer-palooza is coming. But do we really want all the smartphone clutter in our eye line? Part of why I love the Ray-Bans is that they give me a break from my phone’s endless distractions. And do we really want Meta, known for an ad business built on personal data, to be our virtual eyes and ears? (The company says photos and videos captured through the Ray-Ban glasses are yours and not used without your permission.)
On the bright side, my putting might improve when my glasses guide me to make the perfect shot—my kids will think I’m a mini-golf legend.
Write to Joanna Stern at joanna.stern@wsj.com
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