Meta Ray-Ban Display hands-on: best smart glasses I’ve ever tried

The Verge

The $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display add a monocular display that unlocks a wide range of hands-free capabilities like live captioning, texts and video calling, navigation, and the ability to preview photos. Plus, you get discreet gesture controls via the Neural Band.

Transcript

00:00we are here at meta connect 2025 and i just got some hands on time with the meta ray-ban display

00:08now what are the meta ray-ban display they are meta's smart glasses with an actual binocular

00:14display in one of the lenses this is basically what we've been waiting for from smart glasses for

00:21i don't know since google glass dropped a decade ago so let's dive right into it

00:26oh here we go how do we look the display is actually quite bright it gets up to 5000 nits and

00:36it is full color oh yeah one of the things that was really surprising to me is that you know i've

00:43tested every other smart glass on the market right now you can usually tell that there's a display

00:49uh when someone is moving their head or the light hits it just right you genuinely cannot with this

00:55i had my colleague jay in the demo with me we were staring at each other he could not tell that

01:01there is a display i was looking at though he could tell i was not fully present and looking at a

01:06display so we'll see what that does to society but but when you step outside you can see the display

01:14even in direct bright lighting part of that is because there are transition lenses that means so

01:20you go outside the lenses change and the brightness will also adjust so that you can see it oh i can

01:27see yeah so you can see it started transition yeah but i can see the display and i'm outside and yeah

01:34now did i look directly at the sun yes do i recommend that you do that no but if you look directly at

01:41the sun you're not going to see the display but if you look anywhere else you can get a pretty clear

01:45picture and that's huge since ambient lighting has been a problem with smart glasses for forever so

01:52this is this is a pretty big step forward guess do i have a display on or not

01:59yeah guess guess is it on no it's not but now it is you can't tell the other thing about adding a

02:06display is that they've also added a neural wristband so the cool thing about having their neural wristband

02:12is that it lets you silently navigate through menus and select options so there's no more hey

02:18screaming in order to control the ai so you can pinch once with your index finger to select uh pinch

02:25with your middle finger to go back twice will bring up the menu or make it go away and then you can also

02:31swipe through screens as if you're with a d-pad so you can go this way this way up down uh topping it

02:37twice brings up the meta ai and you don't have to like go out like this like you're having a game

02:42controller in your hand you can actually just drop it by your side and do it very discreetly i did it

02:47behind my back it worked that was genuinely pretty cool and you know this won't be available at launch

02:53but something i also got to demo was handwriting so using that particular wristband you can just sit

03:00there with your hand on your lap and write out your text messages and you know i have press on nails

03:06it worked with press on nails that was pretty surprising adding a display also opens up a lot

03:12of use case capabilities not just for content capture but for other features as well but you

03:18know let's talk about content capture you can actually see the display give you a preview of the

03:24video and the photos that you're about to take yeah that is so i can zoom it's the most asked feature

03:31for a rebound that's pretty cool yeah that's really cool zoom there's a zoom now you can zoom in you

03:36can take video calls i took a video call through whatsapp at jay was outside of the room i was in

03:42uh i can definitely see and hear you and these are the people i'm with and very some super spy

03:49right there another thing that the display enables is live captioning and now this was really cool because

03:55usually with live captioning crosstalk can confuse it but these are multi-directional microphones so

04:01it only captions who you're looking at what you can do is you can wake meta ai and then just say start

04:08captioning start captioning so how this works right now is as you're looking at me you should be

04:16captioning exactly what i'm talking about right in front of your eyes because they're talking but it's not

04:21captioning them so it's only captioning you i think this has some pretty big implications for

04:26people who may be hard of hearing or you know even if you're not hard of hearing and you're in a loud

04:31area this might be really helpful and if you are like me and you are very prone to getting lost

04:40good news everyone these will also give you a heads-up display for directions when you turn

04:45the directional arrow actually turns with you so it's like when you're looking at directions on your

04:52phone and you can see which direction you're pointing at that happens as well in the display

04:57so you can pull up a map see where you're going and then i don't know you can put the little display

05:04menu away and the directions will still pop up when they're necessary for you another thing that i saw

05:11was trying out live ai features and you know if you're cooking you can ask meta to give you a

05:18recipe you can see a step-by-step breakdown of the recipe in your field of view and you can make the

05:24menu go away when you're actually working uh so no more having a recipe book out and getting it messy

05:29while you're baking the live ai features also get kind of a enhancement with the display i looked at a

05:36picture on a wall and it was able to tell me that it was by andy warhol and i could see other

05:41things from andy warhol in there it'll come in two colors uh one is a black color pretty standard the

05:48other is a sand which is kind of a light brown neutral color i'm partial to that one because

05:53the frames are slightly thicker you get about six hours of mixed usage so same as before oh and this is

06:00cool the the charging case it folds i don't know why i'm so impressed by that but it folds so it folds

06:07flat and you can take it with you on the go you get a couple of extra charges through that so you

06:12know we'll have to see what battery life is like in real life usage because i don't know what mixed

06:17use really means but you know that's for when we get a review unit the neural wristband it has specs

06:22of its own too it's ipx7 and has 18 hours of battery life because you're going to need a gadget for

06:28your gadget they'll be available starting september 30th for 7.99 and that includes the price of the

06:35wristband there's also going to be a little white glove experience where you can go into a store

06:40and get it fitted oh because guess what these open outward a little bit now so if you have a wide face

06:46like moi it's easier to put on and a little bit more comfortable while we would have loved to show you

06:52what the display looked like from my direct point of view it's so hard to get that kind of footage in

06:57the time that we had and in the setting we were in what you can see is the screen share that meta had

07:03set up for us on a laptop and it's a pretty accurate representation of the menus and interface that

07:07i saw in my eye and also the official b-roll that we've cut in is a decent approximation of what you'll

07:13see in the glasses themselves okay okay okay so all the other products were oakley meta housed in ray-ban

07:23glasses right these are the meta ray-ban display are you kidding me are you kidding me

07:29me i have so many edits from my editor

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