At Meta Connect 2025 on Wednesday, the company unveiled its new Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses, which are specifically designed for runners, cyclists, and other athletes. The glasses, which retail for $499, are set to launch on October 21. Meta Connect, the social networking giant’s biggest conference of the year, is where it traditionally unveils its new smart glasses and virtual reality headsets.
The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses feature a large, unified front lens, a change from previous models that had two cameras positioned at the top corners of the frames. The new glasses can capture video in up to 3K resolution and are equipped with a 12-megapixel camera with a 122-degree wide-angle lens. The new design also features a programmable button that can trigger a custom AI prompt, which is set up using the Meta AI app. All of the buttons on the glasses are located underneath to allow athletes to comfortably wear helmets while using them.
Enhanced Features for Performance and Convenience
The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses offer a range of features tailored for an active lifestyle. They have up to nine hours of battery life, or up to six hours of continuous music playback. The glasses come with a charging case that provides an additional 36 hours of charge and can power the glasses to 50% in just 20 minutes.
Meta says the open-ear speakers on the Vanguard are their most powerful yet, at six decibels louder than the previous Oakley Meta HSTN model. The glasses also feature a five-microphone array optimized to reduce wind noise during calls or when using Meta AI. With an IP67 dust and water resistance rating, the highest for any of Meta’s smart glasses, they are built to withstand intense workouts and harsh weather. The wraparound design, which features Oakley PRIZMTM Lens technology, is intended to block out sun, wind, and dust.
The glasses integrate with Garmin smartwatches and Strava. Users can ask the smart glasses for stats such as their heart rate and pace in real-time. With the Strava integration, athletes can graphically overlay their performance metrics onto videos and photos captured with the glasses and share them directly with the Strava community.
A Growing Lineup of Smart Eyewear
The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses are available in four frame and lens colors. They will initially be available in a number of countries across North America and Europe, with a planned launch in Mexico, India, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates later this year.
This new product comes three months after Meta unveiled its Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses, which it called its “first product for athletes and fans alike.” Meta also used its Connect event to unveil a new pair of Ray-Ban branded smart glasses with a built-in display and a wearable wristband for control, as well as an updated Ray-Ban Meta 2 with double the battery life and 3K Ultra HD video capture.
Author’s Opinion
The Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses signal a new strategic focus for Meta’s hardware division. Instead of trying to create a single product for a mass market, Meta is now targeting specific, high-value user groups, like athletes. This focused approach to product development, which tailors features and design to a niche audience’s needs, could be a more successful strategy than previous attempts to create a “one-size-fits-all” product. This shift suggests that Meta is learning that a successful smart glasses market may be built from the ground up, by serving specialized communities with compelling products first, before attempting to achieve mass-market appeal.
Featured image credit: Trusted Reviews
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