Ray-Ban Meta third generation is here. Thinner, with longer battery life and a new button

Smart glasses are one of the few segments where Meta is truly succeeding — and the company took full advantage of this at its Connect conference. The main novelty is Meta VR Glasses, but the conference also showcased the third generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which went on sale immediately after their introduction at a price starting from 449 dollars. Alongside them, glasses without a camera and the cheapest model in the entire lineup also arrived.

Thinner body and an extra hour

The changes compared to the second generation are more evolutionary, but they make sense. The design is slimmer and more comfortable, and the temple tips can now be adjusted by an optician according to the shape of your head — which is no small detail for glasses you’re meant to wear all day. The battery lasts up to nine hours, an hour longer than before.

A programmable action button for instant assistant activation has also been added, along with six microphones designed to filter out over 90 percent of ambient noise. This is often a stumbling block for similar devices — voice control usually fails in wind or on a noisy street.

Camera remains, dynamic photos added

The camera hasn’t changed: it’s still a 12Mpx sensor with 3K recording. New are dynamic photos, where you can choose the best shot from a sequence after taking it — a feature you’re familiar with from phones, and which makes even more sense with glasses, as you don’t compose the shot through a viewfinder.

The LED indicator, which alerts those around you that you are recording, also remains. Meta also tightened it up via software this year after instructions on how to bypass it appeared. More ambitious is the promise that by the end of the year, the glasses are to be the first consumer device capable of recording video with Dolby Atmos spatial audio in a full circle around you.

Camera-free version and the cheapest Meta Glasses

An interesting addition is Ray-Ban Meta Audio — the brand’s first glasses that don’t have a camera at all. Thanks to this, they weigh only 43 grams and last 12 hours, or up to 60 with the case. They essentially serve as headphones that don’t cut you off from your surroundings, plus a voice assistant. They are priced at 349 dollars and will start shipping on October 13.

For some, this might be a more sensible choice than the more expensive model with a camera. Glasses with a lens on the front cause discomfort among those around, and some people won’t buy them for that reason — the camera-free version elegantly bypasses this problem. In addition, Meta is adding its cheapest model yet, the Meta Adventurer for 249 dollars, which will arrive on October 23.

And now, what concerns us

Ray-Ban Meta glasses are commonly sold here — you can find them at Alza, Datart, and elsewhere, with older generations starting around eight thousand Czech crowns. However, the Meta AI function is limited in the Czech Republic, and Czech retailers explicitly point this out in their offers, noting that it can be bypassed via VPN.

This is crucial, because the assistant is the main feature that distinguishes these glasses from ordinary sunglasses with speakers. The new action button for quick access to Meta AI thus loses much of its purpose here. In its announcement, Meta named a number of countries where the offering will expand this year — Poland, Portugal, Turkey, and others — the Czech Republic is not among them.

No one has announced the Czech price for the third generation yet. As a guide: the American price tag of 449 dollars is quoted without tax, so after adding VAT, we would get to roughly eleven to twelve thousand Czech crowns. Anyone considering a purchase should therefore think twice about whether a device whose key function does not fully work here is worth that money.

Would you buy smart glasses, even if the assistant doesn’t fully work here?

Source: Meta, 9to5Google