Jogging on a treadmill in jeans at Meta's Menlo Park campus when it's nearly 80 degrees isn't my idea of a good time. But I was curious what Meta's new wraparound smart shades, and a Garmin sports watch, would do for me.
I couldn't see workout stats floating in front of my eyes, not yet at least, but I could ask for my heart rate on demand. AirPods can do that, too. But AirPods can't record my POV exercise highlight video with overlaid stats for showing off later.
The new Meta Oakley Vanguard glasses, coming Oct. 21 for $499, are not your everyday specs. They make the bold Oakley Meta HSTN glasses released this summer look tame. In them, I look like a dad with a serious midlife crisis. Xtreme Scott should only wear these glasses while doing something sporty, which is exactly Meta's target market.
Meta's smart glasses lineup is growing a lot bigger at Meta Connect this year. In addition to these sporty specs, Facebook's parent company is going to sell updated Meta Ray-Bans, as well as a futuristic version called Ray-Ban Display Glasses, which include a display in the lenses and a neural wristband.
Watch this: Meta Ray-Bans Get Built-In Displays and a Neural Wristband 05:53
The Vanguards are the smart sports visor of the group. They're also a further move by Meta to try to get into the fitness and health space, an area that hasn't been Meta's strong suit at all, although I love VR workouts on its Quest headsets. They have onboard audio that gets piped in off-ear, but the single camera is now centered in the middle of the frames above the nose bridge, and has a wider 122-degree field of view. It's designed to better capture sports clips, and improved audio and microphones promise higher volume levels and better environmental noise reduction.
The Vanguard's design includes a front-centered camera above the nose bridge. Scott Stein/CNET
They also have better battery life than the recent Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses updates. Meta promises nine hours of battery life on a charge and another 36 hours in the charge case, which fast-charges to 50% in 20 minutes (a new feature in Meta's other recent glasses, too).
Camera tricks, audio help
The wider field of view and centered camera sound like features I'd want on the other Meta glasses too, but those will be exclusive to the Vanguards. However, new slow-mo and hyperlapse time-lapse video recording modes on the Vanguards are also coming to the 2025 Ray-Bans and other Oakley glasses.
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