Meta dropped the Ray-Ban name from its cheaper smart glasses, and the reviews are still pretty good

[Undertaker]

Meta's newest smart glasses ditch designer branding entirely, launching simply as Meta Glasses starting at $299, a genuine price cut from the equivalent Ray-Ban and Oakley branded models with relatively few functional sacrifices. Engadget's Karissa Bell rated them 8 out of 10

The lineup comes in three frame styles, Adventurer, a Wayfarer style shape, Starfire, a Kylie Jenner collab cat eye design, and Fury, a chunkier oversized square style, each with its own Meta infinity logo replacing the old Ray-Ban branding. Bell tested the Fury model and found it noticeably heavier at 60 grams than equivalent Ray-Ban frames, with a ridge running the length of each arm that created real discomfort after a few hours, though adjustable nosepieces kept the glasses from slipping despite the extra weight

Functionally there's little difference from Meta's other Gen 2 glasses, the same 12-megapixel camera, a programmable action button, and a new dynamic capture mode that grabs a burst of photos so you can pick the best frame afterward. Meta AI runs on the company's newer Muse Spark model, which Bell found smoother and more capable, though she notes most owners she talks to barely use the AI features day to day since the more advanced ones, like Live AI, still feel more like a novelty than something people actually need

The more complicated part of the review is the baggage that now comes with wearing anything visibly branded Meta. The company recently pushed a mandatory firmware update disabling a glasses' camera if its recording LED gets tampered with, addressing people drilling holes to record secretly, but doing little for the broader concern about bystander privacy. New York has already banned the glasses from all state courthouses, and Bell describes a real, growing stigma attached to wearing them in public, even while she personally used a pair to capture sweet, otherwise unrecordable moments with her toddler nephew on a playground. Her bottom line, if you want prescription lenses stick with the pricier Ray-Ban Meta Optics line, but for anyone just wanting the core smart glasses experience for less money, the new unbranded Meta Glasses are a genuinely good value despite feeling a notch less premium

Meta Glasses review: A bit less polish, a lot more baggage - Engadgetwww.engadget.com