Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 vs. Gen 1 – Which Should You Buy?

By Josh Teder

So, if you’re thinking about getting a pair of Meta Ray-Bans, but you don’t know whether to go for the previous generation or the brand new Gen 2s, after spending well over 6 months with the Gen 1s and now having some time to compare them with the new Gen 2, I’ll take you through my thoughts on which one I would go for.

Battery Life: The Biggest Upgrade

Now, the biggest benefit of going with the Gen 2 by far is that you get double the battery life on the glasses themselves, going from four to now 8 hours, so they can last all day. And the charging case gets a battery life boost as well. It’s now up to 48 hours of additional charge, up from 32.

So, if you plan to use these while out on the beach for a day or at an all-day event where you want to keep recording photos and videos or listening to music and media throughout the day with the glasses, you’ll likely benefit from that increased battery life. But if you’re like me and you aren’t going to have these on for hours at a time most days, then it’s not going to matter to you.

In my six months of reviewing the original Meta Ray-Bans, there was one day out at Cape Lookout where my battery on them died. But just one day out of the entire 6-month period. Now, for that day, would I have liked the battery life to have lasted longer? Yes. So, you do have to consider those special trip days, even if they’re pretty abnormal, whether or not you’ll want that extra battery. But given I had my dedicated camera with me as well as my phone, which can take horizontal photos and videos as well as vertical, the Ray-Bans can only do vertical, I was fine.

Camera Quality Improvements

Another minor upgrade that Meta made to the new Gen 2s is upgrading the camera to 3K at 30 frames per second. And you can also do 1080p plus up to 60 frames per second. The video quality definitely looks a bit clearer with that increased resolution on the Gen 2s, but given that these still record in a vertical video format, I don’t think the difference is as noticeable, especially when you view the footage from a phone.

To me, the 3K camera quality isn’t really enough of a reason to spend the extra money to go with the Gen 2s over the Gen 1s.

Speaker Upgrades and New Features

Another surprising upgrade that Meta apparently made to the Ray-Bans Gen 2 is that they improved the speakers, saying they can now get up to 50% louder and have richer bass and less sound leakage. So, they improved the directionality of the speakers, so more sound makes it to your ears. To me, though, when I listen to music on both of these, they sound pretty much identical. I can’t tell if Meta made any upgrades to them or not.

They also announced a new feature called conversation focus that’s coming soon. And what this does is it uses the open-ear speakers to amplify the voice of a person that you’re talking to in a noisy environment. Though this feature will probably only matter to those who go for the transition lenses version or the clear lenses, unless you’re just super cool and you can pull off wearing sunglasses indoors all the time.

Speaking of transition lenses, Meta also added new color options for transition lenses. Lenses are also interchangeable between Gen 1 and Gen 2.

Feature Comparison Summary

So, those are all of the major features and differentiators between the new Meta Ray-Bans and the previous version. And if you want to see more of my thoughts on whether or not I think the Meta Ray-Bans are worth it in general, I’ll leave the link to my review.

Pricing: The Deciding Factor

Now, the Ray-Bans Gen 1 are typically selling for around $300 US at the time of recording, making them slightly $100 more than a regular pair of Ray-Ban glasses. And for $100 more, you get integrated speakers plus a camera. That’s a pretty great upsell, but for close to $200 more than a regular pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

So, right now, the lowest price for the Gen 2 that I’ve seen is around $379. Though that will depend on your country as well as the frame style that you choose. I think for the Gen 2s, that’s a lot harder of an upsell because you’re basically paying for almost double the cost of a regular pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

And that’s why I at this point would go for the Gen 1s over the Gen 2 if the current pricing split holds between them. I don’t think there’s enough of an upgrade between them to justify spending close to $100 more.

This is especially true if you don’t know how often you’ll use the speakers or the camera, which are the main draws to these glasses, no matter how much Meta wants you to think of them as a pair of AI glasses with Meta AI built in.

And be sure to check out the product links in the video as well as on our site, because during the holidays, there could be some significant sales on both the Gen 1 and Gen 2. And I’ll leave that link down in the description and pinned comment.

Final Thoughts

So, those are my thoughts on which one I would go for if you’re stuck deciding between the two. But if you have a different take, definitely let me know in the comments. And to see my 6 months later review of the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, you can get to that by clicking here. Or you can click here to see my other popular 6 months later reviews, like my review of the Meta Quest 3 and Vision Pro. And to see all of the products we recommend at any time, you can do that by visiting sixmonthslater.net/shop.