Meta Ray-Ban Display review roundup: What do early adopters say?

Meta’s most futuristic device is here, and critics have some thoughts about it.

The $800 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which have a built-in display for the first time in Meta’s brief history of making techno-glasses, are now available. As such, plenty of people who review this stuff for a living have had some time with the glasses, giving us a bunch of well-informed reviews to look at.

What are critics saying about the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses? Keep reading to find out.

Meta Ray-Ban Display review roundup

The overall vibes seem positive, but that’s not to say there aren’t major criticisms to be found here.

Critics like the display, mostly

Obviously, the big reason to buy these glasses over the cheaper Gen 2 Meta Ray-Ban glasses is that the Display has, well, a display built into the right lens. You can use them as a viewfinder for taking photos, a language translation tool, a way to read and respond to text messages, or anything else that the Meta app store (which reviewers didn’t really have access to) will enable over time.

The good news is that, per reviewers, this works pretty well. Victoria Song at The Verge spoke highly of the ability to offer live text captions for anything someone says to you. While it doesn’t work as well in very noisy environments or when someone is talking to you from out of your line of sight, Song said it’s still a strong selling point.

“Even so, it’s a scenario that feels magical when all the pieces fall into place,” Song wrote. “When I show the feature to my in-laws, their jaws drop. Immediately, their minds go to relatives who are hard of hearing who might benefit.”

Tech Fowler, a tech review channel on YouTube, also spoke highly of the display overall, especially the ability to use it as a camera viewfinder for taking photos. The other Meta glasses simply can’t do that, so anyone who works in content creation should highly consider these ones instead, according to Tech Fowler. However, that review did mention one particular issue that could be an annoyance for some users.

“To be honest with you, because it’s only in one eye, it does take a little bit of time to get used to,” Tech Fowler’s review said. “That’s because I find that sometimes it feels a bit, I wouldn’t say fuzzy, but I do get double vision a little bit. I’m only getting an image in one eye, my brain is kind of interlacing the images from both eyes together, and because of that, there is some shared vision in both eyes.”

Battery life is a problem

Obviously, adding a display to any device is going to make battery life an even bigger priority. According to early reviews, battery life is not a strength of the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses.

Engadget’s Karissa Bell noted that Meta rates the glasses for about six hours of use on a charge, but that’s apparently a generous rating, depending on how much you use the display.

“With very limited use, l was able to stretch the battery to about seven hours, but if you’re doing display-intensive tasks like video calling or live translation, it will die much, much more quickly,” Bell wrote.

Nathie, another YouTube tech reviews channel, offered some slightly more damning specificity. According to that channel, the device ran out of juice after about 3.5 hours of use. It really seems like this is going to vary from person to person depending on how much use they get out of the display, but given that the display is such a major selling point with this device, it’s worth pointing out that heavily using the display evidently kills the battery.

The frames are heavy and don’t offer enough privacy

One thing that pretty much every review I found pointed out is that the frames, which come in at 69g of weight, are simply too chunky to be used as all-day-every-day glasses. Just listen to what Song had to say in her review.

“At 69g, these are also too heavy for daily all-day wear. My normal glasses with very thick lenses are 31g. I was fine wearing these for a few hours, but discomfort crept in after that,” Song wrote. “A few times, I felt the telltale signs of a headache at the back of my head and nose bridge. The bottom of the frames also left indentations on my cheeks. I’m prone to dry eye, so needing to wear contacts with these every day has been deeply uncomfortable. Artificial tears help, but the combination of the weight, eye strain, and dry eye has been tough to navigate.”

Tech Fowler also pointed out that the Ray-Ban Display frames weigh about twice as much as his regular glasses. This seems to be a pretty ubiquitous complaint. Song also pointed out that the LED light which is meant to signal to other people that the glasses are recording footage is too subtle to be noticed in some situations. Privacy is a huge concern for a device like this, as it was for Google Glass a decade ago. It doesn’t seem like Meta has solved that particular issue yet.

The neural band works well

Meta Ray-Ban Display with neural band on wooden table

Do you want to wear a wristband all day?
Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meta’s new glasses can be controlled via voice commands using Meta AI (the same as other Meta glasses), but since there’s a display now, some finer control is warranted. That’s where the wrist-worn neural band comes in. You slap it on your wrist, make sure it’s charged up (apparently its battery can last a full day or so), and use hand gestures to navigate the UI. Critics were generally pretty kind to the neural band.

“In more than a week, it almost never missed a gesture, and it never falsely registered a gesture, despite my efforts to confuse it by fidgeting or rubbing my fingers together,” Bell wrote at Engadget. “The gestures themselves are also pretty intuitive and don’t take long to get used to: double tapping your thumb and middle fingers wakes up or puts the display to sleep, single taps of your index and middle fingers allow you to select an item or go back, and swiping your thumb along the side of your index finger lets you navigate around the display.”

Critics also noted that there’s a helpful little haptic vibration to let you know when it’s registered a gesture, so there’s no uncertainty there. Another big bonus is that you don’t need to have your hands in view of the camera for these gestures to work, unlike some other XR devices.

These are for early adopters right now

In general, these reviewers came across as fairly positive on the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. They mostly work as intended, despite poor battery life and the (at the time of reviewing) total lack of an app store, which is not an issue most consumers will have to worry about. However, there’s still the matter of value. At $800, these cost as much as a good smartphone, while not offering nearly as much day-to-day usefulness. As such, multiple critics agreed that these glasses are really for early adopters right now.

“Unless you are an early adopter, you need to have the newest tech, or you really love one of the features in particular, I don’t think these are worth it,” Tech Fowler’s review said. “I think $800 is a huge amount of money for something that doesn’t do that much.”

Nathie, our other featured YouTube reviewer, echoed the sentiment.

“Having used these for a week, it became clear to me that there are still many challenges that have to be tackled to go truly mainstream,” Nathie’s review said.

It sounds like the biggest steps for Meta going forward are going to be be making sure there’s a robust selection of apps, improving battery life, and finding some kind of way to alleviate the privacy issue.

Content Accuracy: Keewee.News provides news, lifestyle, and cultural content for informational purposes only. Some content is generated or assisted by AI and may contain inaccuracies, errors, or omissions. Readers are responsible for verifying the information. Third-Party Content: We aggregate articles, images, and videos from external sources. All rights to third-party content remain with their respective owners. Keewee.News does not claim ownership or responsibility for third-party materials. Affiliate Advertising: Some content may include affiliate links or sponsored placements. We may earn commissions from purchases made through these links, but we do not guarantee product claims. Age Restrictions: Our content is intended for viewers 21 years and older where applicable. Viewer discretion is advised. Limitation of Liability: By using Keewee.News, you agree that we are not liable for any losses, damages, or claims arising from the content, including AI-generated or third-party material. DMCA & Copyright: If you believe your copyrighted work has been used without permission, contact us at dcma@keewee.news. No Mass Arbitration: Users agree that any disputes will not involve mass or class arbitration; all claims must be individual.

Channels

Recently Played

Meta Ray-Ban Display review roundup: What do early adopters say?