Oakley Meta HSTN glasses vs. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: More than meets the eye

When selecting a pair of glasses, you typically choose one based on its style or price. However, smart glasses like Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN (pronounced "how-stuhn") have several additional factors to consider, including camera quality, battery life, charging speed, and more.

Oakley Meta HSTN is an evolution over what made Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses so great, and there's a clear price difference between the two brands. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses have gone on sale a lot recently, with prices dipping down to around $240 for a pair. Meanwhile, Oakley Meta HSTN preorders began for $399, while some style choices will cost you $499. That's a big price gap!

But are the Oakley glasses worth the cost? Designer brands are often more expensive just because of a name, but Oakley Meta HSTN does a good job of providing extra value for a higher price. Here's why.

Oakley Meta HSTN glasses vs. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: Specs

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Oakley Meta HSTN glasses vs. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: Design and style

Ray-Ban and Oakley have very different target markets and demographics, but both brands are owned by parent company EssilorLuxottica. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses were a great choice for the first two generations of Meta smart glasses products. You can buy these in three distinct Ray-Ban styles: Wayfarer, Skyler, and Headliner.

Wayfarers are available in seven different colors, Skylers are available in eight different colors, and Headliners are available in a whopping ten different colors, all with several different types of lenses and colors, including things like transitions, polarized lenses, and prescription lenses.

Meanwhile, Oakley Meta HSTN is just one main style — that's HSTN, as the name implies. Oakley Meta HSTN only ships in four main colors, too: Black, Warm Grey, Clear, and Brown Smoke. With each of these frame colors, you can choose from six different lens colors: Warm Grey, Clear, Grey Transitions, Ruby, PRIZM Polar Deep Water, or PRISM Polar Black.

Based on this, you can guess that Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are the choice for folks who want a range of styles and colors to select from. However, as I mentioned earlier, this choice isn't just about style. It's about function, too.

While Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses offer more style and color options, Oakley Meta HSTN are designed to be a sportier, more performance-focused pair of smart glasses. Meta even states this in the "How to choose" section of its AI Glasses product page.

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Regardless of which model, style, or color you choose, all Meta AI glasses ship with a single camera on one side of the front of the frame and a privacy LED on the opposite side. They also include over-the-ear speakers built into the glasses' arms, a battery that lasts several hours, and can be recharged via the included storage case.

That storage case works just like an earbud case works, so you'll charge the battery in the case by plugging a USB-C cable into its port. You'll then dock the glasses inside the carrying case any time they need a top-up, and the case's battery will give your glasses several full charges before needing to be topped up again.

Either way, when you buy a pair of Meta AI glasses, you're getting a pair of frames that look like glasses, not a tech gadget that just so happens to be on your face.

Oakley Meta HSTN glasses vs. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: Cameras and battery life

Meta hasn't officially stated the battery size of Oakley Meta HSTN's just yet, but we know that Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses use a 154mAh battery. Meta says Oakley Meta HSTN has double the battery life of Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, but that doesn't necessarily mean the battery is twice as big (or heavy).

Our own tests show that Oakley Meta HSTN gets about 50 minutes of record time at 1080p resolution, while Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses get only 30 minutes at the same resolution. Recording at 3K video quality drops that gap quite a bit, but Oakley Meta HSTN will still record a few more minutes longer than Ray-Bans at that resolution.

Each Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses style is a slightly different weight, but the average is just 49g. Oakley Meta HSTN glasses weigh 53g. Meta likely used a slightly larger battery, which would weigh a bit more, which also lines up with the longer recording length that we've seen in our tests.

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And while both glasses feature just one 12MP camera on the front, Oakley Meta HSTN are able to record at 3K resolution while Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are restricted to 1080p.

That extra boost in video recording resolution is thanks mainly to a new camera sensor, but the only advantage will be found in video recording quality, not photo capture. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses already record great quality video, and Oakley Meta HSTN's prolonged battery life ensures that these will be even better for the task.

Oakley Meta HSTN glasses vs. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: Meta AI and the future

Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses didn't launch with Meta AI onboard, but the update that brought the feature a few months after launch totally changed the game. Meta AI can hear and see the world around you thanks to the five onboard microphones on the glasses and the forward-facing camera, making it easy to interact with Meta's AI assistant in a natural way.

Oakley Meta HSTN features the same processor as Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, not the new AR1+ chip, so we don't expect any major difference in Meta AI capabilities between Ray-Ban and Oakley.

That being said, Meta AI and the company's regular updates have provided a wealth of added benefits and features compared with what was available at the Ray-Ban product launch, so we fully expect Meta to continue to deliver new and interesting features to keep its glasses on our faces throughout the day. If you're looking for a real paradigm shift, the upcoming Meta Hypernova smart glasses fit the bill better than what's offered from Oakley.

Oakley Meta HSTN glasses vs. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: Which should you buy?

Meta did a good job creating two product lines with notable differences. The new Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses offer higher resolution video recording alongside roughly double the battery life, according to Meta's estimates. Oakley's trademark PRISM Polar lenses provide a unique look through the glasses when compared to Ray-Ban's offerings, but you'll pay at least $100 more for Oakley's enhanced capabilities.

Meanwhile, Ray-Ban Meta Smart glasses offer a significant number of additional style choices over Oakley and are less expensive, to boot. There's no software feature differentiation between Oakley and Ray-Ban, though, so you're mainly choosing between style, performance, and cost.

If I had to pick one to buy today, I'd still choose Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses because of the style options and the value, but there's no denying that Oakley Meta HSTN are more capable glasses that help solve the biggest issue of all: battery life. That, alone, makes them a better choice for lots of people.