Meta showed off its newest collaborations with Ray-Ban last month, breaking out three new types of smart glasses, starting with two different sets of AI glasses built to bring Meta’s AI directly to your face. The third set, though, was a much more ambitious augmented reality pair, which cost almost twice as much as any of the other offerings Meta and Ray-Ban have out at the moment: the Meta Ray-Ban Display.
Officially released at the end of September, the Meta Ray-Ban Display are everything you’d expect from a next-generation pair of AR glasses. In fact, iFixit says that the tech on display is “groundbreaking,” even calling them a “glimpse of that wearable future.” There’s just one problem: The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are basically unrepairable, iFixit notes in a thorough breakdown of everything it found when tearing down the new $800 AR glasses.
Now, it’s not all that surprising to find that Meta’s latest smart glasses don’t focus on repairability. In fact, repairability has a long way to go when it comes to plenty of mainstream devices. Some companies are finally starting to get it right — Apple finally officially backed the “right to repair” a couple of years ago, for instance. But Meta’s new AR smartglasses are meant to represent the future. This is cutting-edge technology, so maybe we should expect a bit of a learning curve before repairability becomes a priority.
Why repairability matters
That said, iFixit makes a very good point in its teardown, noting that these new AR smart glasses from Meta prove that augmented reality glasses are no longer just a “future concept.” They’re here, they on sale, and anyone with the money to do so can buy a pair. Therefore, it’s time for manufacturers to start treating them like they’re ready to repair, too.
While the Meta Ray-Ban Display use new technology to power the AR functionality, iFixit says allowing for the replacement of components like batteries, glasses arms, and even lenses should be a priority for manufacturers. If Meta is comfortable charging $800 for a pair of smart glasses and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg truly believes the technology is capable of going mainstream any time soon, as he has alluded to in the past, then the tech has to be something that every day people can afford and repair.
Unfortunately, this is a common problem with wearables like smartwatches, glasses, and even earbuds. Apple’s latest AirPods also fared poorly in a teardown to see how repairable they would be. So, if you’re excited about the future of AR glasses, it’s probably going to be tough to beat what Meta offers with the Ray-Ban Display. But you absolutely shouldn’t expect the glasses to be easy to repair, so make sure you take care of them.
