As expected, Meta has introduced new smart glasses during its Connect conference today. The announcements included a “Gen 2” of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which retail starting at $379.
There are a bunch of upgrades over the $299 Ray-Ban Meta set that the duo released in 2023. Meta highlighted improvements to battery life, which it says now lasts up to eight hours with “typical use.” The included charging case now provides an additional 48 hours of juice, versus 32 hours for the current one. The glasses can also charge to 50 percent battery in 20 minutes.
The second-gen glasses are equipped with a 12-megapixel camera and offer 3K Ultra HD video capture, with “up to 60 frames per second” and HDR support. Meta says it will release updates that add hyperlapse and slow-motion video capture to all of its AI glasses later in the fall. The second-gen Ray-Ban Meta has 32GB of storage and is IPX-4 rated for water resistance.
On stage at Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about “conversation focus,” a new feature that will help you hear voices better in live environments. This feature will also be coming to the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses. There was also a demo of “live AI” that… did not go well. It was supposed to show Meta’s AI looking at ingredients on a table and helping to prepare a dish, but it appeared to skip forward a few steps and the demo ended unsuccesfully with a “bad Wi-Fi” excuse.
On the style side, the Gen 2 Ray-Bans be available with the same three base frames as the originals: Wayfarer, Skyler and Headliner. All three will be available with a range of lenses, including regular, polarized, transitions and prescription. Polarized lenses will cost an additional $30, while transitions add $80 to the bill. There’s no set price for prescription lenses due to the innumerable ways our eyes can suck.
The second-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses are available to purchase now in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, UAE, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Mexico, India and Brazil will have access to the new glasses “soon.” At least for now, it seems as though Ray-Ban and Meta will continue to sell its Gen 1 wearable at the same $299 price alongside the new model.
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