Meta Ray-Ban (Gen 2) Smart Glasses Review – 6 Months Later
AI Slop, privacy issues, and misuse of these glasses threaten to bring down Meta’s top product.
By Josh Teder
The Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2s are the follow-up to the extremely popular original Meta Ray-Bans, which I reviewed back in 2024. But since then, my usage pattern with these glasses has changed somewhat. And while yes, Meta made some real improvements with the newer version, there are also, oddly, quite a few more downsides than there used to be.
The Biggest Highlight: It Doesn’t Look Like a Gadget
The biggest highlight here is something that might sound obvious, but honestly isn’t. These fit into a form factor that already exists: sunglasses and glasses. You don’t have to strap something new onto your head, like the Vision Pro, which I’ve reviewed, or the Quest headsets, which I’ve also covered. These are just Ray-Bans with open-ear speakers for music and podcasts and a camera for recording video and taking photos. That’s especially useful when you’re active, when you want a first-person viewpoint, or in any situation where pulling out your phone would be awkward or unsafe.
“You don’t have to strap something new onto your head. These are just Ray-Bans. And that’s the best thing about them.”
Camera and Video Quality
Video is still locked to a 4:3 ratio, which is incredibly frustrating. Meta wants you to post footage to Facebook, Instagram, or Threads, all primarily phone-based platforms, so I get why they made that call. But if you shoot video in the horizontal aspect ratio, because our eyes work that way and not the other way, you’ll wish you had that option.
New with the Gen 2, you get 3K resolution at 30 frames per second. The sensor is still 12 megapixels, but they’re using roughly 6.5 of those megapixels to hit that 3K resolution, with the remaining pixels handling digital stabilization. In my experience, that stabilization has actually looked pretty good. Overall, photos and videos look good for something coming out of a pair of glasses. They probably won’t blow you away, especially on a larger display, but I do like that they don’t look overprocessed the way a lot of smartphone images can.
Battery Life: The Real Reason to Upgrade
Battery life is probably the biggest upgrade the Gen 2 has over the Gen 1 and the most compelling reason to upgrade if you’ve been using the original glasses heavily for photos and videos.
I’ve worn the Gen 2s for hours outside and have yet to run into their battery limit, which is something I absolutely did with the Gen 1 on my trip to Cape Lookout a few years ago.
There is still a recording limit for video. It’s now 5 minutes on the Gen 2, up from 3 on the Gen 1. With the Gen 1, you could technically get around that limit using the Instagram Live practice mode, which let you download footage without people actually seeing your stream. But six months into owning the Gen 2, there’s still no live streaming capability on these glasses, so that workaround no longer applies.
Features I’ve Actually Used (and Several I Haven’t)
Outside of music, photos, and videos, the only other feature I’ve regularly used is the tap-and-hold gesture. Right now I have mine set to trigger an Apple Music Station. It works with Spotify too, though not with YouTube Music on iPhone.
Phone calls and anything Meta-specific, I haven’t touched. That said, if WhatsApp is your primary messaging app, I could see these being more useful for that.
What about Meta AI? In the situations where I’ve tried it, frankly, I just wasn’t impressed. I’ve asked it to identify trees and gotten back: “You’re looking at a tree with green leaves.” It might perform better with more recognizable landmarks, but I haven’t found myself trusting it enough to give me accurate information the way I trust other assistants, like Gemini.
Gemini has one pretty big advantage over Meta AI: Google already owns it, so it has all the data from the various Google apps I use and has a much easier time understanding my personal context. That makes the responses more relevant. If Gemini were on a pair of glasses, I’d use that AI assistant a lot more than I’ve found myself using Meta AI on these.
There’s also a translation feature in Meta AI, but reports on it have been mixed and I haven’t had the right situations to test it long-term. The app does support connections to Google Calendar, Strava, and Apple Health, so it can at least pull in fitness and schedule data, even if it can’t reach into all your apps the way a deeper OS-level integration would.
Privacy Issues: More Than Just a Minor Concern
Now let’s talk downsides, and there are actually a lot more than I anticipated when I first started writing this review, because of how many privacy issues have come up around these glasses recently. If you’re considering getting them, you should absolutely be aware of all of this.
The Data Review Problem
First is the investigation by Swedish newspapers that found human contractors in Kenya reviewing footage captured through the glasses and labeling it to train Meta AI. These contractors were reportedly seeing highly private human moments, as well as sensitive information like credit card numbers. Here’s what seems to have happened: when you choose to share your data with Meta to help improve the product, and you agree to upload your photos and videos to Meta’s servers when you trigger Meta AI, that footage was apparently being captured and then sent to Meta for review. The issue is that Meta just did not make this obvious to users. That’s bad design, and arguably worse than just a design flaw.
The Stealth Mode Problem
It gets worse. There are now multiple reports of people using Meta Ray-Ban glasses to record others without disclosing it, then uploading that content and sometimes making money off it. When the glasses are recording, they emit a white LED meant to signal to people nearby that they’re on. But according to a Wired investigation, some people are charging up to $120 to remove that LED so the glasses can operate in what some are calling stealth mode.
One of the alleged uses for stealth mode is men filming themselves trying to pick up unsuspecting women without their knowledge, which has led some people to refer to these as “pervert glasses.” This has gotten bad enough that someone built an Android app anyone can download to detect whether nearby Meta Ray-Ban glasses are in recording range.
What the Name Tag Leak Could Mean
Not all of this is Meta’s fault. Google Glass had the same cultural problem back in the day, with Glassholes running around everywhere. But the reason this matters if you’re thinking about buying these is that this backlash could get larger, and that could have a real impact on what it’s like to own and wear these glasses in public.
Earlier this year, the New York Times reported on an internal Meta memo describing a feature called Name Tag, which would let you identify random people you walk past on the street and query Meta AI about them, in real time, while wearing the glasses. If Meta rolls that out, my guess is it would trigger quite a large backlash and make owning a product like this a lot more uncomfortable.
“There is a real chance this backlash gets worse and more people start turning against these glasses. That could have a pretty negative impact on what it’s like to own them.”
The Meta AI App: A Glasses Companion App in Name Only
Between my Gen 1 and Gen 2 reviews, Meta rebranded what used to be called the Meta View Companion app, where you access your settings and download your photos and videos, into the Meta AI app. You can hit one wrong button and end up in an unwanted AI slop TikTok. Meta did update this app right around when I finished testing, and the redesign is a bit better. Settings are now easier to find via a shortcut in the top right corner. But this is still very much an AI app first and a glasses companion app second. All they seem to care about is having users consume as much AI content as possible and creating as much content for Meta to run ads against, because that’s their actual business model.
This became obvious when they announced Instagram Reels support for the Ray-Ban display glasses. In the announcement, there’s a guy out in nature gushing about how it looks like he’s just wearing normal glasses, watching a cool sunset. In reality, he’s mindlessly flicking through Reels. He’s “present while staying connected,” which is a strange way to describe doom-scrolling via glasses and watching Meta ads instead of just letting your mind go blank. Fun fact: that’s actually good for your brain. Just not so good for Meta’s bottom line.
So, Should You Buy the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2?
This question is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be when I first started reviewing this product.
If you want a pair of Ray-Bans with an integrated camera for taking photos and videos on trips, during sports, or when you’re out and about and see something cool, yes, these are still great for that. I had forgotten how much I loved using the Gen 1s on my trips to Ireland and Iceland, or to the beach. Basically any situation where pulling out your phone wouldn’t be safe or as convenient. Add that camera capability to the open-ear speakers, the doubled battery life, a water resistance rating of IPX4 (splashes and rain are fine, submersion is not), plus the status light, recording light, and a touchpad that works great for controlling music, media, and the AI assistant, and it’s a great hardware package. Just don’t clean them with rubbing alcohol like I stupidly did. It will absolutely ruin the finish on the frame.
But here’s the problem for Meta. Apple and Google are both capable of making glasses that do all of that. They just won’t have the Ray-Ban design, which, to be fair, does matter to some people. What they will have is far deeper integration with your phone’s operating system and far better assistants, with Gemini on Android and Siri powered by Gemini on iOS. That’s why Meta is likely scrambling to establish some kind of moat with these glasses. Whether their AI efforts turn out to be that moat, I’ll let you be the judge.
So, do I recommend them? Yes. But it’s a tepid yes. The privacy issues, the increasing creep factor in the culture around this product, plus Meta shoving AI slop down your throat via the companion app, all of that makes them harder to recommend compared to when I reviewed the Gen 1s. They’re also more expensive at launch, $379 versus $299 for the original. If you can find them on sale and you want Ray-Bans with better battery life and an integrated camera, they’re still a good choice. You can check current prices on both generations across multiple retailers, including eBay where used pairs tend to be well-priced.
The line has also expanded since Gen 1. More frame styles are available now, and Meta has added the Oakley Meta HSTN and the Oakley Vanguard, which is specifically designed for sports.
