Oakley Meta Vanguard Review

Introduction

Meta has been leading the charge in popularising face-worn tech, and part of their prevalence comes from the company’s willingness to partner with big names outside of the tech space.

The company’s multi-year partnership with EssilorLuxottica first gave rise to a run of Ray-Ban shades with integrated cameras, microphones and speakers, all backed by Meta-powered AI smarts. Earlier in 2025, the company then extended that partnership to Oakley too, with the Oakley Meta HSTNs.

Up until now, these collaborations have focused on mass appeal; in the hopes of normalising the form factor and the idea of strapping Meta-powered tech to your body. Now, Meta and Oakley are pushing an entry that more closely speaks to Oakley’s core sport-centric image, with the Oakley Meta Vanguard.

These wrap-around shades marry Oakley’s iconic design work and features – like its Prizm lenses – with the same Meta technology that we’ve already seen inside various Ray-Ban specs and the HSTNs, albeit tailored to the Vanguard’s more distinct use case.

The question is, does this latest collaboration make for a must-have product for brand die-hards, or are the £499 / $499 Oakley Meta Vanguard simply too niche to find its footing?

Design

• Oakley wraparound Three Point Fit design
• Interchangeable nosepads and Prizm lenses
• 66 grams (glasses), 258 grams (charging case)

The Vanguard are a wholly different kettle of fish to anything we’ve seen from Meta’s smartglasses collaborations so far, namely thanks to their wraparound shield lens design. Browsing Oakley’s current range of non-smart eyewear, their form most closely mirrors the brand’s Radar EV range, but with cleaner lines, especially along the arms.

This echoes their sport-centric focus, with running, cycling and trail-running in mind (just look at the Vanguard’s marketing materials and you’ll see exactly who they’re aiming these at).

I’ll admit upfront, I am not exactly the sporty type, with an occasional light jog being my main source of exercise. If you own cycling Lycra or burn through Saloman shoes hiking every weekend, however, these specs’ bold aesthetic will likely look far more at home on your face, than mine.

Despite the additional tech onboard, I was impressed how lightweight (66 grams) and comfortable they felt, even after extended wear. Oakley’s Three Point Fit approach ensures that the Vanguard will hold firm to most heads, without applying unnecessary pressure.

In the box, as well as the charging case and polishing cloth, Oakley also provides you with three nosepads of different sizes, allowing for some alteration for those who might find the Vanguard slides down their bridge when running or the like. I, thankfully, got on just fine with the out-of-box nosepad, while the long arms sport flexible tips that apply gentle pressure behind your ears, which no amount of frantic head-shaking seemed to break loose.

IP67-certified protection against dust and water ingress makes sense for a product like the Vanguard, and ups their durability credibility against the rest of Meta’s smartglasses, all of which are only IPX4-rated.

Coming from 2023’s Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses, the Vanguard unquestionably offer a superior fit, but what you gain in comfort, you sacrifice in personalisation. There’s only one shape of Vanguard frame (compared to the 22-odd fits and finishes of Ray-Ban Meta), available in white or black (pictured), with one of four lens finishes.

If you grab the Prizm 24K (gold) or Road (red) shield lens, they’re paired to a black frame. Opt for black (dark grey) or Sapphire (blue) lenses, however, and they’re paired to a white frame.

You can swap lens shields out, allowing for any of the four available colours to be attached to either frame finish; however, the parts of the wraparound lens attached to the arms bearing the Oakley logo can’t be changed.

Features

• Meta AI integration
• Interconnectivity with Garmin and Strava
•  9-hour battery (glasses), 36 hours (case)

You’re not just picking a colourway when you opt for one Prizm lens over another. As the name of the red ‘Prizm Road’ lens on my review pair of Oakleys implies, the colour and tint is specifically designed to help improve your vision. In this case, highlighting – with colour and contrast – bumps and cracks on the road.

As such, changing the lenses on the Vanguard is more than just a fashion statement; it’s functional. That said, the practicality of actually replacing the shield lenses is anything but trivial. As a single piece of plastic, you have to first bend the lens out of the nose bridge on either side, pull down from the top of the frame, and finally pull at the sides to fully release it.

This sounds simple on paper and in practice instils confidence that there’s no risk of the lenses popping out accidentally, even when dropped, but the actual act of releasing the lens from the frame feels perilous to the frame, as well as the lens itself, considering you have to grip and bend it all so forcefully.

Unlike other Oakley and Ray-Ban products, the Vanguard’s shield lenses don’t support prescription optics, and – despite the Prizm dyes used – aren’t polarised either. From launch, Meta and Oakley have promised a fifth ‘low light’ Prizm lens for the Vanguard, but two months on from release, no such lens option has yet materialised.

Unlike Oakley Meta HSTN which preceded them, the hardware controls for the Vanguard are all on the underside of each arm. Not only that, they’re far more pronounced along each arm’s bottom face, which helps finding the right button whilst you’re in motion (although I do think they could have gone further, perhaps with knurled metal buttons, rather than plastic).

Whereas Meta’s previous glasses have had a single hardware button, the Vanguard has three: a shutter button – as with the company’s other specs – alongside a programmable action button, which by default enables HyperLapse video capture.

Where the Ray-Ban and Oakley HSTN’s have a power switch (against the left hinge), the Vanguard’s left arm instead features a power button, which can turn the glasses on and off with a long-press, when not in the case. It’s much easier to get at without needing to take the glasses (or gloves you might be wearing) off, but makes it harder to tell which state the Vanguard is in when not on your face; not as glanceable as the toggle.

There’s also a touchpad on the side of the right arm of the glasses, used for controlling volume by swiping forward or back, and pausing or playing music (among other things) with a tap or a long-press, depending on how you’ve configured your Vanguard.

Coming from the Ray-Bans, while the responsiveness and interaction feel the same here, the placement is much further back, right above the ear (rather than against your temple on the Ray-Bans), which takes a little getting used to.

You can summon Meta’s AI assistant by saying “Hey, Meta” or long-pressing the touchpad, followed by your query or command (like taking a photo). Some of the latest upgrades beyond fielding questions about the weather include live translation (supporting six languages at the time of writing).

Testing with Spanish, whilst it’s not full-proof, it’s certainly one of the faster and more intuitive examples of the feature I’ve seen.

The speaker’s words are relayed to you in your native language in real-time by your chosen Meta AI voice (I hear Dame Judi Dench), and your responses are translated back into their mother tongue as on-screen text within the companion Meta AI app (just make sure to download the language pack you want before trying this feature out). The quality of the translation is good enough for conversation, but not word perfect.

I also like the ability to posit follow-up queries to Meta’s assistant, without having to reactivate the wake phrase. So long as the internal white LED in the corner of your vision is still pulsing, the assistant is still listening, and holds relevance and context with your previous queries in mind. I was able to get about six questions deep before it would misunderstand and supply me with an unwanted answer, which I think is pretty respectable by today’s AI assistant standards.

Diving deeper into the Meta AI app, you have control over how the Vanguard synchronises captured media (manually or automatically), query history (a log of questions and responses with Meta AI via Vanguard), controls for updating firmware or changing the assistant’s voice, and pairing Meta’s functionality with supported third parties.

While previous glasses already allowed for connectivity with popular music services – like Apple Music, Audible and Spotify – the Vanguard also adds the ability to pair with two of the most popular fitness platforms out there: Garmin and Strava.

Provided you’ve got a compatible Garmin Watch – I tested it with the Garmin Venu X1 (but most from the last few years look to be compatible) – when you take on a run, hike or road biking (once you’ve added the Meta AI data field to your watch or bike computer), you can then check in with the Meta Assistant for progress reports on aspects like pace, heart rate, distance and more.

What’s more, you can ask about metrics from previous recorded activities, have the Vanguard’s internal LED relay intensity zones during a workout and enable the new Auto-capture feature (more on that in a bit).

The general idea is that this cross-brand integration is even less intrusive than having to glance down at your watch to check key stats mid-run or cycle, so you can stay even more focused on keeping pace. However, the act of calling out to Meta’s assistant and waiting a few seconds for a response simply feels like a different kind of distraction, that actually can take longer or more readily throw you off.

Whether it’s a more elegant solution really falls to personal preference, and both still fall short of an actual HUD (heads-up display), akin to Garmin’s old Varia Vision attachment; a feature that some fitness fans were hoping for as part of the Vanguard experience, before it was fully unveiled.

As there’s seemingly a little more space to play with, compared to the HSTNs or either generation of Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses, the Vanguard happen to pack the longest promised battery life of the range so far. The specs themselves are quoted at delivering up to nine hours of use per charge, with a 20-minute fast-charge to 50% and a full charge within 75 minutes. Meanwhile, the (decidedly chunky) case adds an additional 36 hours in top-ups.

It’s meant to be enough to carry you through a full marathon, but in practice, mileage varies pretty wildly. Continuous audio playback is quoted at six hours of use, and in real-world testing, it’s seemingly significantly less.

A 20-minute run, with Auto-capture enabled, plus a couple of manually captured 15-second 1080p 30fps videos, and music playback at 60% volume (to combat wind and road noise) drained the battery by ten percent, which extrapolated, would result in just shy of approximately 3.5 hours of continuous use.

Camera

• 12MP 3K 122º nose-bride mounted camera w/ EIS
• Can shoot up to 4K at 30fps for up to three minutes
• Also supports Hyperlapse, Auto-capture and slow motion

Alongside allowing Meta’s AI to recognise objects or scenarios in front of you and describe what it “sees” or translate text, the cameras on the company’s smartglasses also serve as an excellent ever-ready way to capture and share the world around you from your perspective

Like the 2025 Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN specs, the Vanguard sports a singular 12MP sensor, capable of video capture at up to 3K at 30fps. Unlike the company’s other glasses, however, the Vanguard’s sport focus has meant Meta has given the Vanguard’s camera a wider 122º field of view, and importantly, shifted it from the edge of the frame to the centre, on the nose bridge.

The position better balances stills and footage compared to Meta’s other glasses, especially when your hands are in-frame, contextualising a shot. The wider field of view makes sense for capturing action too, however, I shouldn’t think the best action cameras have anything to worry about in this department.

While footage – especially in terms of dynamic range and colour – appears similar to the likes of the latest GoPro Hero 13 Black in both bright and low light scenarios, the Vanguard’s camera can’t compete when it comes to the breadth of the GoPro’s resolution and frame rate options, focal lengths, fine-grain stabilisation control and more.

Out of the box, the Vanguard’s camera shoots 12MP stills and 1080p 30fps video, both in a 3:4 vertical aspect ratio, with video recording automatically stopping after five minutes (if not stopped manually), whilst three and one-minute auto-stop options exist too.

If you want to up the frame rate (1080p 60fps) or resolution (3K 30fps), however, you lose that five-minute-recording option, as well as the ability to manually dial the electronic image stabilisation on footage up or down. While a little annoying, three minutes feels like the sweet spot for hands-free recording; it’s just a shame you have to choose between the glasses’ best frame rate and best resolution.

Losing access to stabilisation control isn’t as big an issue as it might seem, as the process is applied in-post on your phone and the difference between the levels of stabilisation seems pretty subtle, in practice.

As well as tapping the shutter button for a photo, long-pressing for a video or asking Meta to capture either, you can also say “Hey Meta, start Auto-capture”, or assign the feature to the Vanguard’s action button.

Paired with an active Garmin workout, Auto-capture periodically takes snaps throughout your run, hike, cycle etc. and when you’ve finished and synced everything up, you’ll be presented with a shareable story of any stills or video captured during your activity, as well as relevant metrics your Garmin was tracking at the time. You can share the story as a whole, or individual clips if you prefer.

It’s also worth noting that, unlike regular stills and video, which appear individually in the gallery within the Meta AI app once imported (and which you can still take manually while Auto-capture is on, to be included in the final story), Auto-capture content appears in the gallery as a stack of content, with the option to manually download individual clips to your phone after the fact.

The ability to overlay your real-time fitness data is novel in my eyes, but reading around and speaking with dedicated athletes on the subject, it certainly holds more appeal than I expected, and is one of the Vanguard’s biggest selling points (even though it looks like Garmin users are finding they can now apply the same overlay to footage from Meta’s other glasses).

Hyperlapse gives you up to 30 minutes of 3K 15fps footage that plays back at 30fps, and it’s a fun inclusion that – despite launching on the Vanguard – has also been seeded to Meta’s other smartglasses too. The same is also true for slow motion recording, which captures footage at 120fps, however, its 720p resolution is less than ideal.

While they serve different use cases, one of the most interesting comparisons I made was with my 2023 Ray-Ban Meta glasses. While image and video fidelity, stabilisation and auto-exposure adjustment are practically identical, the Ray-Ban’s content adopts a much warmer, saturated look, which is much more appealing; better suited to social media, where this content is almost exclusively intended.

While you might prefer the more true-to-life look of the Vanguard’s results, I’m hoping Meta adds the option of colour profiles down the line.

Audio

• Stereo open-ear speakers in arms
• 6db louder than Meta’s other 2025 smartglasses
• 5-microphone array with wind reduction

As well as tweaking the camera’s FoV (field of view) to better complement the Vanguard’s sports focus, the stereo speakers sat within each arm push out even louder sound than the rest of the Meta range (by an additional six decibels).

This might not seem like much, but with the speakers right next to your ears, it makes a meaningful difference, especially when it comes to combating the wind and road noise you’ll inevitably encounter whilst working out.

I also find that audio fidelity suddenly becomes blown out on Meta’s Ray-Ban shades when making that final jump from 90% to 100% volume. In contrast, the Vanguard’s output suffers no such breakdown in clarity throughout its volume range.

I was already impressed with the fidelity of my voice to those on the receiving end, when placing calls whilst wearing my 2023 Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Their five-microphone array sounds significantly better than any set of the best wireless earbuds I had to hand, and the same seems true of the Oakley Meta Vanguard’s similar array too.

The promise of a wind reduction algorithm works to a point in practice, but on more than one occasion, the glasses missed my “Hey, Meta” prompt whilst trying to check stats or play a new track whilst mid-run on a windy seafront. Performance is otherwise respectable.

Should you buy it?