As a tech reviewer it’s tough to crown one gadget as my favourite of the year. The smartphone in my pocket is the one I use the most, alongside the best wireless earbuds I’ve been testing. But few new tech products this year have been as fun to use as the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarers I’ve been wearing at every opportunity, not only as sunglasses but as camera, headphones and AI assistant.
These smart glasses were released in 2023 but I’ve been using a pair for a year to see how they fit into my life, and save for relatively short battery life and a necessarily bulkier build than regular Ray-Ban sunglasses, they’ve been a joy to use.
Right now, Meta is discounting the whole Ray-Ban Meta range for Black Friday with prices starting from £239. These clever specs usually cost from £299, so that’s a solid saving. There are several models available for this price, with a few versions costing a little more that add things such as polarised or transition lenses.
The 20 percent discount is available direct from Meta as well as Currys, Argos, Very and John Lewis. This special offer is running until 2 December 2024. If you opt to buy a pair, you can even pay a little more to add your prescription for clear lenses, transitions or sunglass lenses.
Considering a pair of Ray-Bans usually cost about £150, paying less than £100 on top of that to get the smart features is a good deal in my book. The main tools you get are a camera embedded in the frames, which you can use to take a picture or a video clip up to three minutes, using either your voice by saying “Hey Meta” and chatting out a command, or pressing the shutter button on the right arm of the glasses.
These are not augmented reality glasses like the ill-fated Google Glass was, so there’s no display in the lenses or anything like that, but that’s why I like them. You can wear them turned off as normal glasses, and you might want to as the battery isn’t great, lasting only three hours or so if you’re listening to audio. This is done via small grated speakers on each arm near your ears. You won’t hear tunes or podcasts in loud environments but for when you’re at home, in the car or popping to the shops it works well.
I don’t really use the Meta AI features, but they’re there if you want them and work really well. Using the camera, you can say “Hey Meta, look at this and tell me what it is”, and the assistant talks back to you in surprisingly accurate detail.
You can also do web searches or ask simple questions. As this is a Meta gadget, you can optionally link the glasses to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, and reply to messages as they come in. With the Meta View app you can quickly send photos you’ve taken to all these platforms, too.
I’ve not seen this latest generation of Ray-Ban Meta on sale before, so this is a good opportunity to save on a gadget that’s my favourite from 2024.
