Launching a new generation of smart glasses in conjunction with one of the world’s best-known sunglasses manufacturers right as the northern hemisphere heads into winter is the kind of thinking that could only come out of a Golden State company like Meta.

Half a world away, though, I’m testing out the new Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses in a gray and dismal UK. It is decidedly not sunglasses season, so walking around with a pair on my head in early November, the sun a distant memory, makes me feel (to use that most British of idioms) a bit of a pillock.

Of course, these new Ray-Bans aren’t about blocking out harsh sunlight, although they’re good at that anyway, rated to international safety standards for the US, UK, EU, and Australia. And they’re not only available as sunglasses—Ray-Ban offers a choice of two frame styles, its classic Wayfarer and the new Headliner, in multiple colors and with lenses in opacities ranging from clear “regular” specs to transitions to dark shades. Prescription lenses are also available—and likely essential, as I’ll get to—for an additional fee.

Whatever combination you might opt for, though, the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are about the tech crammed inside the frames, with a suite of cameras, speakers, and communication tools aimed at letting wearers capture and share their lives with ease.

Following in the footsteps of 2021’s Ray-Ban Stories, the new model provides several notable upgrades to the hardware, making for a product that Meta now feels confident enough about to directly slap its name on. The integrated camera gets the biggest on-paper bump, leaping from 5 MP to 12 MP. That translates to an increase in photo resolution, up from 2592 x 1944 to 3024 x 4032. Video gets a similar increase, from 1184 x 1184 to 1376 x 1824, but remains at 30 fps.

On the sound front, the frames now feature five incredibly well-hidden mics that enhance the audio quality of your videos, and improved directional speakers that sit just in front of your ears, offering—Meta says—a 50 percent increase in volume and twice the bass of their predecessors.

Improved comms features mean support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 standards. Best of all for the snap-happy, onboard storage gets a whopping 8X upgrade, from 4 GB to 32 GB. Across the board improvements, then—but how are they to use?

Surprisingly Stylish

As glasses, they’re surprisingly comfortable. The Wayfarer pair I’ve been testing—a “shiny black” model frame with dark green-tinged shades—felt slightly tight at first, but that was likely in contrast to my regular spectacles. Once accustomed to the different heft and grip—my usual glasses are 22 grams, while Meta’s Wayfarers weigh in at 50 grams, but that’s only 5 grams more than standard Wayfarers—they were cozy enough for longer periods of wear.

Stylewise, they’re better than you’d imagine. Apart from the camera rig and an LED that springs to life when filming—designed to signal to others around you that you’re recording—embedded in the corners, at first glance they’re almost indistinguishable from the classic Wayfarers.

Setup is simple enough, mostly done through the Meta View app. You pair the glasses by holding down a discreet button on the rear of the charging case, but a Meta account is required (existing Facebook or Instagram logins will work). The whole process, after some initial bumps, only took about five minutes. Incidentally, that charging case is another improvement on the Stories model, now an elegant tan leather, and capable of providing eight full charges for a combined 32-hour battery life.

Taking a photo is as simple as tapping the button on the top of the right-side arm, while long-pressing starts video recording, with all media imported to the Meta View app to review. This can either be done manually through the app while wearing the frames, or else happens automatically when they’re closed and charging in the case.

Capable Camera, Funny Framing

Image quality is solid from the 12-MP camera, and both color richness and detail captured impressed. However, everything always comes out slightly fish-eyed, and far more zoomed out than your own view of whatever you’re shooting. This is fine if you want to take in as much of your surroundings as possible, but can prove to be disorienting when viewing photos back: Was I really standing that far away? No, the camera just makes it seem as if I was.

I also found framing an image to be a bit of a gamble. Anything I was looking at front-on would come out shifted to the left. To center an object, I’d have to turn my head to the left, almost looking past it. That then often resulted in overcorrection, and it regularly took multiple attempts to get the subject in shot as I wanted. When one of the selling points is meant to be the ability to instantly take a photo, that’s not exactly ideal.

Video seemed to fare better in terms of framing, but with the tradeoff of lower resolution. Still, visual quality was more than acceptable, especially for the truncated recording window of 60 seconds max. That sort of length is perfect for taking 360-degree tours of your surroundings: I got some nice pans and a few first-person vids of a local Christmas market. Transitioning from light to dark areas is handled with aplomb, too. But the big wins with video here are impressive stabilization and spatial audio recording from those five mics.

Strictly for Socials

If you hadn’t already guessed from the brevity of the videos or the resolution dimensions (which amount to a 3:4 aspect ratio), these aren’t so much smart glasses as they are social media glasses. Almost everything about the Ray-Ban Meta specs is centered on sharing to social platforms.

Once you’ve imported media to your phone, you’re presented with a raft of apps to which you can ping content. Unsurprisingly, Meta’s own platforms are the default channels, with options to upload to Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger (Threads, oddly, isn’t one of those at launch).

The layout is designed to appear as though you have more options, though, with multiple sharing formats (story, reel, or post) for each app. Thankfully, it’s not quite a walled garden—a generic share button lets you upload to other apps you have installed, such as sending a clip via Signal or posting an image to Bluesky.

You can also create montage clips from your photos and videos, mashing between four and 10 pics and vids into one shareable clip of up to 30 seconds. Editing is largely automated, with a few modes to select from—such as “Twist,” which adds a flip transition between each clip—plus the option to add one of 21 pregenerated music clips or size it in square or portrait orientation. If you do mix static images with video, a slow pan is added to the photos, so the whole montage flows without sudden stops.

Now Streaming

However, while these Creations, as they’re called in-app, might find some use to document rapid-fire bursts of activity (especially for anyone wanting to make their life look more exciting than it is), users who like to really curate their #content won’t find enough precision in editing or customization here.

What’s more likely to win some creators over is the ability to livestream directly from the Ray-Bans, a feature absent from the earlier Stories. You can broadcast for up to 30 minutes, but the catch is that this is a walled garden, only allowing you to link to Instagram or Facebook. Quality takes a further hit here, too, capped at a mere 720p.

That said, you can seamlessly switch POV from your glasses to your phone and back again, which inventive creators are undoubtedly going to use to make some interesting videos. If you’re brave, there’s also the option to have comments read out to you in real time, via the glasses’ speakers.

Return of the Glasshole

Now, forgive the blindingly obvious statement here, but one problem is that to do, well, anything with the Ray-Ban Metas, you need to be wearing them. The whole point, ultimately, is that they’re a camera on your face, allowing you to snap a pic of whatever you see even quicker than reaching for your phone.

Here are some use-case scenarios for when I would want to be already wearing a pair: A neighborhood cat is coming up for a scritch; a lion is walking the streets having escaped from the circus; or a rat is stealing a slice of pizza. In such cases I want—no, need—to take a photo instantly.

If, like me, you already wear glasses, unless you spec prescription lenses (Meta and Ray-Ban were unable to prepare a prescription pair for this review, but you can choose from -6 to +4) every time you want to use them you’ll have to actively swap them in place of your usual specs, destroying the immediacy of their intended use. Similarly, if your prescription Meta Ray-Bans are shades, but you go indoors, you’ll either need a second clear pair or surrender to appearing like a cut-price Anna Wintour.

Of course, the idea of wearing smart glasses all the time presents another problem.

Remember the dawn of the glasshole? A decade ago, when Google first launched its Glass range of smart specs, they were met with a wave of condemnation from privacy campaigners, ethicists, and anyone who just didn’t like the idea of strangers potentially recording them.

So immediately rejected by wider society were they, that some establishments began preemptively banning Google Glasses from being worn on their premises. But that was in 2013. Everyone captures everything for the ‘gram now, don’t they? Or maybe TikTok. Whatever. We live in a world defined by the maxim “pics or it didn’t happen.” Surely, here in 2023, wandering around wearing a pair of camera specs won’t still faze people, right?

Wrong. Not only have the Ray-Ban Metas already led to a college football spy scandal, but everyone I showed the glasses to during my review period had the same reaction: an immediate, almost visceral discomfort.

Whether it was my partner, friends I met for a meal, or even another regular I chat with at my local coffee haunt, when I explained what the glasses were and what they could do (often in response to “Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?”), their body language immediately changed, closing up and not wanting to look toward my eyes. Even when I reassured them that the Ray-Bans were only capturing when the LED was lit, they instinctively disliked the potential of surveillance.

The LED itself isn’t all that prominent, either—a gently pulsing white light that’s easily overlooked, especially in broad daylight. It’s not going to be a super clear indicator of recording, especially to anyone who doesn’t know what the specs are. It’s easily covered or obscured, too, with no impact on the actual recording.

Those factors combine for a puzzling return to questions of social etiquette when wearing smart glasses, and I’m not sure what the answers are. The only thing certain is that, in my experience, people really didn’t like being around them.

Not-So-Smart Glasses

That’s a problem that might only worsen as time goes by and Meta expands the integration of AI features into the glasses. Plans are in the works to be able to ask questions about your surroundings, or scan objects and ask for more details on it (an idea that could have use in retail, for instance), or even just to suggest caption ideas on your photos. Think of it as speaking with ChatGPT. Then imagine doing it in a public space, with people who are already creeped out by the camera functions. Those etiquette and privacy questions are only going to get tougher.

Speaking of AI, remember that Instagram reel Zuck dropped to promote the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, asking Meta AI how to braid his daughter’s hair? Well, forget about doing that if you’re outside of the US. While some basic voice commands are available globally (“Meta, take a photo”, “Meta, record video”), those hair-braiding instruction features and the like aren’t active in all territories. Even in the US, they’re in beta at time of writing.

Still, the voice controls that are included work pretty well, and at least expand beyond just commanding the glasses to capture media. You can start a phone call, connect with people on WhatsApp, or dictate messages, all with a “Hey Meta …”, and with surprising accuracy, too. That five-mic array picks up audio clearly even when outdoors and walking down busy streets, or on windy days, and they always selected the contact I intended.

The Sound of Victory

It’s on the audio front that the Ray-Ban Meta glasses find their saving grace. Sound quality is surprisingly, almost shockingly, good—to the extent I had to double check if they used bone conduction. They don’t, but the clarity nearly fooled me.

For listening to music or podcasts while walking around, the way those improved speakers pump sound right into your ears means the Ray-Bans can easily take the place of in-ear buds. Not only is this more comfortable, it has the benefit of leaving you with situational awareness, able to hear sounds around you.

While there’s some dedicated integration with Spotify, the glasses pair with your phone as any other pair of Bluetooth headphones would, allowing you to use your preferred music service or podcast app. The directionality of the speakers means there’s barely any audio bleed, too, which thankfully reduces that glasshole factor.

The frame’s right arm doubles as a touchpad for media controls. Sliding a finger forward or backward increases or lowers the volume, while a single tap plays or pauses. You can also answer and end calls with a double tap.

Sure, hardly anyone makes phone calls now, but the quality of the experience seriously impresses. On a test call to a friend, I could hear every word spoken to me, even outdoors with traffic passing by, and they could hear me perfectly. It was slightly surreal, speaking into the ether—and I got a few strange looks for talking to “myself” from passersby that likely wouldn’t have even glanced if I’d had in-ear buds.

Longer-term audio use is something of a battery drain, though, with the charge falling from full to about 15 percent over the course of a two-and-a-half hour walk about town. That’s less than the proposed four hours per charge, and necessitated a return to the charging case.

A pair of very discreet connectors under the bridge of the nose clips onto a bracket in the case, and they’re back to full charge in just over an hour. The case itself is charged by a USB-C port (you’ll need your own cable and plug, though) and is probably best left to charge overnight.

Final Look

Sadly, a superb audio experience isn’t enough to make the Ray-Ban Metas an essential purchase (just ask Bose to explain why its sonically impressive audio frames got canned in 2022). Taken as a holistic product, they lack a clear purpose or identity, not convenient enough for unthinking point-and-shoot captures, nor comprehensive enough a recording tool for influencers.

Even for those lucky enough to be blessed with 20/20 vision, you need to already be wearing them to benefit from that headline ability to shoot or record instantly—if you’re not, it’s going to take longer to get the glasses on, wait for them to pair, and then take a snap than it would just to grab your phone. Then consider that the Ray-Ban Metas presume you’re not too precious about how well your pictures come out, given the framing issues.

Factor in the semi-walled garden for sharing, especially when it comes to livestreaming, and the risk of being a glasshole and alienating your friends and peers, and it becomes increasingly tricky to imagine whom these are really for. Remember, Snap ended up with $40 million of unsold smart glasses.

So, while these Meta specs benefit from the classic Ray-Ban approach to style, making them glasses or shades you’re more likely to want to wear for an aesthetic statement, as smart glasses they still feel more of a gimmick than a must-have.