is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
The second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses aren’t too different from the first. The biggest change is that they have a better battery life, making them much easier to rely on as a private set of speakers or an eye-level camera for an all-day adventure.
I just can’t get over how weird I feel while wearing them.
Meta recently announced the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 smart glasses, promising eight hours of battery — twice as much as the previous version. So far, that seems accurate. I set up a pair provided by Meta the morning before they were announced, and I wore them all day while walking around Meta’s campus, taking demos, writing stories, and just going through a workday, including snapping the occasional photo or using the onboard speakers to help me navigate. They were fully charged when I put them on right before 9AM PT, and when I got to my hotel room 12 hours later, the battery was at 9 percent.
The battery has held up on days when I’ve pushed the glasses more, like taking photos and videos during a trip to the zoo or listening to The Vergecast on a walk to get groceries. Unless you’re really doing a lot with the glasses, you’ll likely be able to wear them for a full day out without plopping them into the case for a charge. The charging case gives the Gen 2 an additional 48 hours of battery — compared to 32 extra hours with the first-gen case — and it charges the glasses by up to 50 percent in 20 minutes.
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1 / 5 A photo taken with the glasses while on a trip to the Oregon Zoo. Photo: Jay Peters / The Verge
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