Oakley Meta Vanguard Smart Glasses With a Centrally-Placed Camera Launched, Aimed at Athletes

Oakley Meta Vanguard made its debut at the Meta Connect event on Wednesday. It is a reimagination of the classic Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which are designed as comfort wear. Instead, the Vanguard focuses on athletes and outdoor activities, with its wraparound design and centrally placed camera. The new smart glasses join the Meta Ray-Ban Display and the third generation of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Notably, the Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses were briefly revealed by the company in a YouTube video on Tuesday.

Oakley Meta Vanguard Smart Glasses: Price and Availability

The Vanguards' price is set at $499 (roughly Rs. 43,850), and the smart glasses are currently available for pre-order. Interested individuals can pre-order the wearable either on Meta's website or Oakley's website. The smart glasses are available in Black, Road, Sapphire, and 24K (gold) colour options. It goes on sale starting October 21.

Notably, the lenses for the Vanguards are replaceable and cost $85 (roughly Rs. 7,500) each. Currently, these smart glasses are being launched in Canada, Europe, the UK, and the US. Meta says the glasses will be introduced in Brazil, India, Mexico, and the UAE later this year.

Oakley Meta Vanguard Smart Glasses: Specifications and Features

Described as "Performance AI glasses" by company CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Oakley Meta Vanguard is designed for athletes playing high-intensity sports. It has a wraparound, eye-protection design and weighs 66g, slightly heavier than the Ray-Ban Meta. The smart glasses also come with an IP67 rating for dust and splash resistance. Notably, the tech giant says the glasses feature Oakley's Prizm Lens technology, which blocks out the Sun, wind, and dust.

The Oakley Meta Vanguard sports a 12-megapixel camera with a 122-degree field of vision (FOV), placed right above the nose piece to offer a first-person point of view when recording content. The nose piece itself is replaceable to better fit the user's face. The camera offers different capture modes. Users can either record five-minute-long videos in 1080p resolution at 30fps or record three-minute-long videos with 1080p resolution at 60fps. The highest possible quality is recording 3K resolution videos at 30fps for three minutes. Meta is also offering new slo-mo and hyperlapse modes.

Just like the regular Ray-Ban Meta, the Vanguard also features open-ear speakers and a five-microphone array, allowing users to listen to or speak with Meta AI or on calls. The company claims that the speakers are strong enough to be audible even while driving in 30mph winds. The microphone also comes with wind noise reduction to improve voice clarity. Interestingly, the smart glasses also feature a new Action button to control all the camera modes, as well as a secondary customisable button. Both of these are placed on the underside of the arms.

On connectivity, it supports Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi. It also comes with 32GB of built-in storage. Meta has also partnered with Garmin to integrate Meta AI with the company's smartwatches. This means that when paired with each other, users can ask Meta AI for a health or workout insight via the microphone on the glasses, and the smartwatch will quickly pull up the data.

Meta says the Vanguard offers up to nine hours of battery life on regular use, or up to six hours of continuous music playback. The charging case is claimed to offer an additional 36 hours of battery life. The company also says that the wearables can be charged to 50 percent in 20 minutes.