Oakley Meta Smart Glasses could be coming to rival Ray-Ban and I'm all for it

It looks like Meta is about to announce a partnership with another glasses brand, to introduce a new range of smart glasses with different styles.

With the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses rapidly gaining in popularity over the last year, mainly thanks to new AI-powered features, we could be about to see a new lineup of devices – this time from Oakley.

More a sports brand than Ray-Ban (but still operated by the same parent company, EssilorLuxottica), Oakley will allow Meta Smart Glasses to reach a wider audience. And it'll be great to see a whole gamut of different styles become available. I use Oakley sunglasses for golf and when cycling, so those are two use cases that could benefit greatly from AI aid.

We don't know much about the partnership as yet, which will be formally announced this coming Friday, 20 June, However, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and the official Oakley social channels have both teased the collaboration.

Oakley's Instagram channel also called it "the next evolution", while Ray-Ban simply replied with the eyes emoji.

What to expect from Oakley Meta Smart Glasses

It is highly likely that if the partnership between Meta and Oakley results in consumer smart glasses, they will sport similar tech to the Ray-Ban models available today.

That means they'll have camera lenses in the frame, speakers in the arms and link with the Meta app for AI assistant control and use. I currently have my Ray-Ban Meta Headliner glasses speak with John Cena's voice when I ask the Meta AI Assistant to explain my surroundings or look up information.

You can also choose other voices, while the feature set is considerably more advanced than when Ray-Ban Stories first launched in 2021.

These days you can take 12-megapixel photos using the built-in camera, record 1080p video, make calls, listen to music, and even translate languages.

The only sticking point for some is that they wanted new styles... now it seems that's about to happen.