The Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses are designed for cyclists and other athletes.
The smart glasses support various hands-free actions via a simple "Hey Meta" prompt
Photo Credit: Meta
Oakley Meta Vanguard was launched in India on Tuesday. Aimed at athletes who engage in outdoor activities, the smart glasses arrive as a redesigned version of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses. They feature a centrally placed 12-megapixel camera with support for 1080p video recording at 60 frames per second (fps). Like the Ray-Ban Meta, the Oakley Meta Vanguard have Meta AI integration, enabling users to listen to or speak with Meta AI or on calls.
Pricing for the Oakley Meta Vanguard in India starts at Rs. 52,300. It is available for purchase via Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, and leading optical stores across the country. Customers can choose from four different variants of the smart glasses:
According to Meta, the Oakley Meta Vanguard is geared towards athletes and cyclists involved in high-intensity sports. Unlike the standard Ray-Ban Meta that has a Wayfarer style, the new smart glasses have a wraparound, eye protection design, inspired by Oakley's signature Vanguard frame. The glasses tip the scales at 66g and have an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance.
Meta says it has equipped the Oakley Meta Vanguard with Prizm Lens technology, which is claimed to block out the Sun, wind, and dust.
Similar to the Ray-Ban Meta, the Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses are equipped with a 12-megapixel camera, which is positioned slightly differently. The camera has a 122-degree field-of-view (FoV) and offers a first-person point of view when recording content. Users can record videos in 1080 30fps for up to five minutes, or 1080p 60fps for up to three minutes. There's also an option to record up to 3K resolution videos at 30fps for three minutes, which can then be shared across Meta apps such as Facebook and Instagram.
Other features of the Oakley Meta remain the same. The smart glasses have open-ear speakers and a five-microphone array. But what sets the Vanguard apart from the Ray-Ban Meta is a new Action button, which allows users to control the camera modes. Alternatively, there's also a secondary customisable button, positioned on the underside of the lens arms.
The Ray-Ban Meta Glasses heavily bank on AI, leveraging the company's proprietary Meta AI assistant. Users can say a simple “Hey Meta AI” voice prompt for toggling various hands-free actions, such as identifying a song playing in a café.
Meta has introduced several India-specific features, too. To begin with, users can select Hindi as their preferred language in the Meta AI app, which means they can ask questions, get information, answer texts, and control media in Hindi. Apart from this, there is support for hands-free voice interactions and Hindi support for UPI Lite payments. Lastly, Meta has also added Deepika Padukone as one of the choices in the available voice lineup for the AI assistant.
The Menlo Park-based company has also partnered with Garmin to integrate Meta AI with the company's smartwatches. When paired with a Garmin watch, users can ask the Oakley Meta Vanguard to pull up health or workout insight via the microphone, and the smartwatch will quickly pull up the data.
On the connectivity front, the smart glasses support Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E. They come with 32GB of built-in storage. 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.
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