Meta and the EssilorLuxottica group are expanding their collaboration with the launch of the Oakley Meta HSTN, a new model of smart glasses with integrated AI features, unveiled in June 2025. Following the success of the Ray-Ban Meta line, this new offering targets a sporty and tech-savvy audience, combining Oakley’s iconic aesthetics with Meta’s artificial intelligence technologies.
Continuity between Oakley Meta HSTN and Ray-Ban Meta
The Oakley Meta HSTN retain the urban and dynamic design of the American brand’s HSTN line, featuring round lenses, thick temples, and a lightweight O Matter frame. This launch comes one year after the release of the second generation of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, introduced in 2024. The latter already marked a turning point in the industry by combining advanced AI capabilities with a discreet, lifestyle-oriented design.
The Oakley Meta HSTN thus expand Meta’s portfolio in the AI glasses segment, offering a more appealing alternative for users fully engaged in sports, without giving up advanced features. The partnership between Meta and EssilorLuxottica continues to blend style and technology, with the goal of making AI assistance increasingly accessible and wearable.
What are the main differences between Oakley Meta HSTN and Ray-Ban Meta?
Although the available features are very similar, there are some improvements in this new model of Meta’s AI glasses, along with conceptual differences:
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Target audience: The first and most evident difference between the Oakley Meta HSTN and Ray-Ban Meta is the intended audience. While the former caters to a more active user focused on enhancing and sharing their sports experience, the latter brings an already-iconic style into a modern urban lifestyle context.
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Video quality: Both models are equipped with a 12-megapixel camera, but the main difference lies in the quality of the recorded images. Videos captured with the Ray-Ban Meta are in Full HD, while those taken with the Oakley Meta HSTN are in 3K resolution.
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Battery life: Another key difference for users is battery capacity. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses offer around 4 hours of battery life, with the charging case providing up to 32 additional hours. The Oakley Meta HSTN, on the other hand, offer up to 8 hours of charge (around 5 with intensive use and 19 in standby), with 48 hours of additional charge from the case.
Considerations for professional use
Although primarily designed for leisure, the Oakley Meta HSTN, like the Ray-Ban Meta, highlight an interesting trend for professionals working in AI, augmented reality, and smart glasses. Features like visual recognition, contextual voice assistance, and transcription point to viable pathways for the development of solutions aimed at industrial or medical applications.
For now, these devices remain within the consumer realm, but the underlying technology clearly signals a broader direction: the integration of AI, computer vision, and wearable computing is becoming increasingly tangible beyond enterprise environments.
Looking ahead: possible future developments
While the Oakley Meta HSTN currently do not include augmented reality features, Meta has openly stated that it is working on this technology for its future smart glasses. A concrete example is the Meta Orion prototypes, AR smart glasses under development featuring integrated displays and advanced AI capabilities. These devices, currently in testing, aim to combine augmented vision with voice and gesture interaction, in a more compact format compared to traditional headsets.
The collaboration with EssilorLuxottica could therefore serve as a strategic platform for the future integration of augmented reality into consumer-oriented wearable devices, such as Ray-Bans or Oakleys. For now, the focus remains on voice assistance, computer vision, and content management through audio and touch commands. However, the shift toward AR is explicitly part of Meta’s roadmap: an indication that today’s AI glasses could become the foundation for more advanced visual experiences in the years to come.
