Meta Ray-Ban vs. Meta Glasses – Which Should You Buy?
The surprising amount of differences between Meta’s two most popular glasses.
By Josh Teder
I’ve had the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses for well over six months now, and after wearing the new Meta Glasses for the past several weeks, I found a surprising amount of differences between these two pairs of glasses, plus some updates to the controversies surrounding them. Here’s how they compare, and ultimately, which pair, if any, I’d go with.
A Bulkier New Case
The first major difference between them actually involves the case. Meta introduced a new, bulkier, standardized case across all three versions of the Meta Glasses. It’s bulkier, and you have to slide the glasses in lenses down, which just feels like the lenses are going to get scratched up in a way they wouldn’t in the Ray-Ban case. Though I do like the internal LED that Meta added to the charging case.
Comfort Upgrades
When I took the Meta Glasses out of their case for the first time (sadly, there’s no included microfiber cloth as you get with the Ray-Bans), a few subtle things jumped out that make these feel like overall better-functioning glasses.
Flexible Hinges
At first glance, the hinges look like the ones on the Meta Ray-Bans, but bend them, and you’ll notice they’re actually less rigid and more flexible. These are spring-actuated, over-extension hinges, which should make them more comfortable for different head shapes. After wearing these over the past few weeks, I have found them to be a bit more comfortable, especially thanks to the nose bridge adjustment.
An Adjustable Nose Bridge
You can set the nose bridge to three different positions, letting the glasses sit higher up or lower on your face depending on your nose shape and size.
Cold-Adjustable Temple Tips
Another comfort improvement Meta made with these glasses involves the tips. You can cold-adjust the temple tips to better fit your head shape, though Meta warns not to adjust them more than 10 times before they’ll start to show wear and tear.
Design and Controls
A Smaller Meta Logo
From a design standpoint, the Ray-Ban logo is gone, replaced with a tiny Meta logo at the top left lens and the tip of the left stem. Further up the stem, though, you’ll see these glasses are still manufactured by EssilorLuxottica, the same company that has made all of Meta’s smart glasses to date.
A New Action Button
There’s also a new action button, different from the button on the Ray-Ban Metas, which has just a single capture button for taking photos and videos. On the new Meta Glasses, you’ll notice a blue dot marking the raised area of the capture button. That’s the new action button, and you can remap what it does in settings, but by default it’s set to trigger Meta AI, which both pairs of glasses support.
This frees up the touchpad’s tap-and-hold gesture to do something else, like instantly playing music from whatever service you’ve set up on the glasses (Apple Music, in my case). You can still do this on the Ray-Ban Metas, but that’s their only customizable control.
A Six-Mic Array
The Meta Glasses also have a six-mic array, up from five on the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2. These extra mics help with features like voice isolation, which I’ll get into more below.
Battery Life and Price
Another surprising difference between these two glasses is actually battery life, though it only shows up in their charging cases. Both glasses get you up to eight hours for mixed usage, while the Meta Glasses’ case holds an additional 40 hours and the Ray-Ban case holds an additional 48.
So what about the cameras and speakers? Spec-wise, there’s no difference in the camera sensor. Both are 12 megapixels and capable of 3K vertical video at 30 frames per second, and they still, frustratingly, only shoot in vertical video. On the Meta Glasses, though, Meta has shrunk the size of the cutouts for the camera and the LED recording light, which stays on by default any time you take a photo or video.
For speakers, both sound pretty similar, and I haven’t noticed much of a difference. These are still open-ear speakers, though. They sound good, but earbuds like the AirPods Pro 3 or the AirPods 4 with ANC, both of which I’ve reviewed, are still going to sound way better. Both pairs are IPX4, so they’re splash-resistant. You can wear them out in the rain and shouldn’t have to worry about anything, though you don’t want to drop either of these in water. Both also still cap video recording at 3 minutes per clip for 3K video.
Meta AI and the App
Both use the Meta AI app, which is a little less slop-focused these days, though there’s still a good amount of AI slop if you look for it. Meta AI itself operates basically the same way on both glasses, though I’ve seen notable improvements overall, and it can now integrate with more apps like Google Calendar, Apple Health, and Gmail.
Two Lingering Controversies
The Tampered LED Loophole
The first one I talked about in my Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 review: people figuring out ways to secretly record others by tampering with the LED recording light. Meta has since rolled out a software update that can detect when the LED has been tampered with and will prevent the glasses from recording photos and video. That’s a welcome change, and hopefully it will stop creeps from wearing these to secretly record people, which has been a real problem.
A Terminated Data Contract
Meta has also terminated its contract with a company that was annotating a dataset from the glasses any time Meta AI was triggered, a pretty worrying story that was reported earlier this year. That said, if you still have sharing enabled for your photos and videos to go to Meta’s cloud, it could theoretically still be reviewing all of that footage, which is why I don’t have that sharing enabled on my own glasses.
A Paused Subscription Cap
The other big controversy landed right around the time the new glasses were released, when Meta introduced a $20-a-month subscription tier called Meta One Premium. It involves the new Conversation Focus feature, which Meta had planned to cap at 3 hours a month for free before recently pausing that rate limit.
Conversation Focus runs entirely on-device, not on Meta’s cloud servers, so it’s not like every time you use the feature, you’re running up server costs for Meta.
That’s what made the rate limit feel a lot like the ill-fated BMW heated-seat subscription: unlocking an ability the hardware you already paid for already has.
Which One Should You Buy?
The unfortunate truth is Meta still makes the best smart glasses you can get today, baggage and all.
Though they do come with some baggage that other companies entering this space may not have to deal with, like Google’s audio glasses, made in collaboration with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, which are coming out later this year.
But today, if you’re looking to get a pair of Meta smart glasses, do you get the Ray-Ban Metas or the Meta Glasses? I think this comes down to one of the biggest differences between them: price. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 starts at $379, up from the $299 that the original Meta Ray-Bans launched at, which also happens to be the exact price of the brand new Meta Glasses.
Given the same camera and audio performance, a case with relatively similar battery life, and only a slightly worse design, I still think the Meta Glasses are the obvious buy over the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. I think the Gen 2 is probably best for people who specifically want Meta smart glasses in that Ray-Ban form factor and brand. Though if the Ray-Ban Gen 2 goes on sale, I might still be tempted to go with them, since I really do prefer their case. You can see current prices on both, plus all of Meta’s glasses, in the Featured Products section above.
So those are my thoughts on the Meta Glasses versus the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. For all of my thoughts on the latter, check out my Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 review.
