Oakley Meta Vanguard Sport Glasses Review

Introduction

Meta and Oakley have collaborated once again to deliver AI-powered smart glasses designed with keen adventurers in mind. 

Built for active, outdoor scenarios, the new Oakley Meta Vanguard Sport Glasses are packed with tools that promise to keep you motivated and engaged while hiking, cycling, skiing and so much more.

I recently spent some time testing the Oakley Meta Vanguard Sport Glasses in a controlled, hands-on environment. With this in mind, while I’m not ready to deliver my final thoughts on the AI glasses just yet, here are my first impressions of the slick-looking Oakley Meta Vanguard Sport Glasses.

Price and Availability

The Oakley Meta Vanguard Sport Glasses are available for pre-order now, ahead of their official release on October 21st. The glasses have a starting RRP of £499/$499/€579, although any extra accessories or lenses will be sold separately. 

Design

• Resemble cycling glasses
• IP67 rated for durability
• Swappable lenses and accessories available

What’s striking is how different the Oakley Meta Vanguard Sport Glasses look compared to the Oakley Meta Glasses. While the latter can easily be worn in everyday scenarios, the former are undoubtedly designed with the great outdoors in mind. 

The IP67 rating means the glasses can be used in a wide range of notoriously challenging weather and environmental conditions, from snow and rain to sandy deserts. Plus, the spongey nose pads on the glasses allow them to sit comfortably yet firmly on the nose, which should help prevent any accidental slips or drops.

The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses are also equipped with open-ear audio, allowing you to listen to music, receive notifications, and engage with Meta AI while remaining aware of your surroundings when out and about. 

Finally, the lenses are completely swappable too and can be tailored to your specific prescription for an additional cost.

Features

• Meta AI tools allow for hands-free controls
• Longest battery life ever in Meta glasses, with up to nine hours
• Garmin and Strava partnership provides real-time motivational and tracking tools

The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses benefit from a partnership with Garmin and Strava, which includes motivational as well as key health and fitness tracking tools. With Meta AI built in, you can ask your glasses mid-workout to provide real-time updates on your metrics, such as distance and timing. 

Not only that, but you can also use voice commands to get your Oakley Meta Vanguards to start recording videos, take a picture and more. Something I found especially interesting is that you can listen to voice notes you’ve received on WhatsApp and record a reply, all with just simple voice commands. The caveat is that you will need to ensure your phone is with you.

Otherwise, the open-ear nature of the glasses means the audio needs to be loud enough to be heard above outside noises, while still allowing you to stay aware of your surroundings. Despite testing the glasses in a relatively noisy environment, I was often able to hear Meta AI’s responses and music clearly. 

There were, however, moments when the glasses couldn’t quite pick up my voice commands and required an additional try or two to work. I’m not sure if this was due to me speaking too quietly, and if I would eventually get used to the strange sensation of chatting with glasses, or if the environment was simply too noisy. 

In addition, when asking Meta AI to take a photo or start recording, you have to listen for a chime, which indicates that the glasses have heard and completed the command. I found it was sometimes difficult to hear the chime when the glasses made that noise. This is likely something that can be ironed out in the settings, but I think it’s worth noting nonetheless.

Meta promises that the Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses will deliver up to nine hours of battery life, which is the longest ever reported for any Meta-branded glasses, plus an additional 36 hours with the included case. As I only tried the glasses for a short period, I haven’t confirmed this for myself just yet.  

Camera

• 12MP action camera can capture up to 3K video 
• 5 mic array supports advanced wind reduction for audio capture
• Slow Motion mode supports 720p at 120fps

The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses feature a 12MP action camera, which captures 122° ultrawide footage and is found just above the nose pad. During our brief stint with the glasses, we were able to ask Meta to take photos, capture brief video recordings and even shoot video in slow mo. 

Speaking of slow-mo capture, enabling this mode drops the resolution down to 720p at 120fps, but you can also shoot up to 3K footage at 30fps instead. 

Otherwise, the Vanguards are fitted with a five-mic array, which Meta promises features advanced wind reduction to help capture your voice or audio even in blustery conditions. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t able to test this myself in the indoor test environment, but I’m keen to see how this measures up in real-world use.