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I have been with the Oakley Metas almost two weeks and the experience has been … complex.

It is not that they are bad smart glasses – in fact, they are technically superior to the Ray-Ban Meta In several aspects – but There is something in your proposal that does not finish curdling. It is as if they had wanted to cover too much and, in the process, they lost their identity.

I started with illusion. I used some Oakley to run for a couple of years, so when they announced these smart glasses I thought they would be perfect for me. The reality is more nuanced.

Technical tab of the Oakley Meta

	Oakley Meta HSTN
dimensions and weight	145 x 51 x 22 mm 53 grams (mount) / 133 grams (case)
Image capture	3024 x 4032 pixels 12 MP, Ultra wide angle, 100 ° of FOV
Video capture	1440 × 1920 pixels or 2203 × 2938 pixels at 30 fps
audio system	2x microaltavoces 5x Microphones
Voice assistant	Goal AI
Controls	Tactile By voice
memory	32 GB Flash (+1,000 or +100 photos of 30 seconds)
battery	Up to eight hours with an intermittent load and use Up to 48 hours accumulating loads with the completely loaded case
connectivity	WIFI 6E Bluetooth 5.3 USB-C of load (case)
compatibility	iOS 15.2 or Android 10 onwards
price	549 euros

The full name, by the way, is ‘Oakley Meta HSTN’.

They are not the wayfarer

The Meta Ray-Ban had the enormous success of incorporating electronics into iconic design glasses. Wayfarer are wayfarer, carry or not camera. AND They convinced me from the first minute with them. The Oakley Meta, on the other hand, seem to have stayed in no one’s land:

They are not sports enough to run comfortably.
But they also have the necessary elegance for urban day to day.

The design is peculiar. Neither masculine nor specifically feminine, with those pronounced angles near the nasal bridge and that white frame that shouts “look at me”. It is curious how a product that should go unnoticed exactly the opposite.

I have taken them down the street, running, on the beach, and They always attract the occasional look. Not of the type “What chulat glasses”, but rather of “What are you wearing in the face?” People suspect something happens. Which takes me to the next point.

The problem of white and the obvious camera

The white color (although they are officially “warm gray”) is not a great success. It makes the camera much more obvious (a black gap next to each lens) and not only when the LED lights to indicate that you are recording.

With a white mount is too much evidence of the camera, and can intimidate who we have in front. Image: Xataka.

The black-target ray-ban camouflage this element better; They only betray their technological nature when that white point turns on. With the Oakley Meta, People already suspect before you do anything.

This takes me to an anecdote that marked me. He was on a Valencian beach, sitting with the glasses on, when just in front of a mother began to change – disnain – to her little daughter, who would not be more than six years old. I felt very uncomfortable and took off my glasses immediately, but during those seconds I thought about how delicate the situation could be.

If someone had seen that he wore those glasses with camera in front of the girl, even if he was not recording anything, a very serious problem could have been mounted. This has nothing to do with Oakley, but with smart glasses. As a society we will have to reach certain agreements on this type of product.

It is different to carrying a mobile:

With the phone, the act of recording is evident: you raise it, you point it, it is deliberate.
With these glasses, just looking, you are already “pointing”, even if you have no intention of capturing anything.

Social challenges that we are going to have to solve in some way with this technology. We have already seen some thorny case Even in Spain.

The sports experience that was not

I have run with them on several occasions: from 6 kilometers short exits to a long 21 -kilometer training through a series on an abandoned athletics. The idea of having a two in one – sun gaps and bone driving headphones – is brilliant on paper. It is the combo that I use separately. The idea of combining them in a single product sounded great.

This is what I usually use to run: Oakley analog + bone driving headphones. The Oakley Meta integrate both, but they have not convinced me. Image: Xataka.

In practice, they did not convince me.

The additional weight is noted. It is not dramatic, but after a few kilometers you start feeling small shakes with each stride that you do not experience with normal Oakley. The audio is good enough And I have no complaints about him. It is better in static than in motion, but it is somewhat lower.

Running slowly there are no problems, but when the speed uploads, the Oakley Meta tends to slide forward and give small shakes on the nasal septum. Or at least that has been my experience. GIF: Xataka.

Besides, Sweat, rain and splashes resist with its IPX4 certification. They cannot immerse themselves and invite you to take care, but at least we can sweat with them.

In any case, it is as if they had tried to make sports glasses without fully committed to that audience. Therefore, once again, the land of anyone and the loss of identity: they want to be several things at the same time so they stop being really good in something more concrete.

Of course, you have to recognize something: Gold polarized prizm lenses are spectacular. Everything is seen with a gold-yellowish tone reminiscent of the films set in New Mexico, as if it were permanently in the Breaking Bad desert.

A recreation taking a photo with the iPhone and the same photo after one of the Oakley lenses:

On the left, the normal image. To the right, the effect taking the Oakley Metas put. Image: Xataka.

The greens become more vibrant, the contrasts are accentuated. To drive they are fantastic, although sometimes the effect is so pronounced that you seem to live in a permanent Instagram filter.

For digital creators and nostalgic

Where these glasses shine is in the spontaneous capture of moments. They are faster than the mobile to capture something sudden: Take your hand to the pin and press the button is more immediate than get the phone, unlock it and open the camera.

But paradoxically, the shutter time is higher. If you already have the open mobile camera, take the photo is faster than with the glasses. It is the difference between capturing or losing that fleeting gesture of a child, that expression that lasts half a second.

I have no Tiktok or Instagram, I am not “creator of content”, but I have discovered that these glasses are perfect for something more intimate that is useful: Generate daily memories from my literal point of view.

Banal Women’s Women’s Videos, game times with the nephews, good spontaneous moments with family and friends. Content that today seems inconsequential but that In 20 or 30 years it will be an emotional treasure. These glasses make it easier to capture them more than ever, and on top of that peculiar point of view.

The small details that work

Gestual controls in the pins are intuitive and work well. Slide forward or back to change songs, play for pausar, keep pressed to activate goal Ai (also invocable by voice).

The Improved battery with respect to the Ray-BAN (8 hours vs 4) It shows, especially if you use them intermittently during the day. The load case, although less elegant than that of the Ray-BAN, fulfills its function.

The photos maintain the same quality as the Ray-BAN, which are betting on the spectacularity through a certain supersaturation, which is fine in such a product. It is logical that that is prioritized to fidelity.

Yes indeed: Often the photos will be crooked. We look less straight than we believe. Touch edit a little. And a paste: it is difficult to balance lights and shadows in high contrast situations. Subexpose the second. Examples: