When the Oakley Meta HSTN arrived earlier this 12 months, it wasn’t what I assumed Oakley-branded good glasses can be. Positive, they’d Oakley’s well-known PRIZM lenses, however the place was the wraparound design? The place had been the athlete-focused options like stronger water and sweat resistance? Confusingly, it felt just like the HSTN glasses had been simply Ray-Ban Meta glasses by one other title. However that’s as a result of Meta had the actual athlete-focused glasses in its again pocket. In the present day, the corporate unveiled the brand new $499 Oakley Meta Vanguard — and it has all the things outdoorsy athletes may need after which some.
“After we began constructing HSTN, it was a better means of creating as a result of a lot of the issues we needed for low-impact sports activities, like skating, don’t require a number of know-how within the eyewear from a efficiency standpoint,” says Oakley world president Caio Amato. Conversely, Amato says, the Vanguards had been envisiond as a “revolution” not only for elite sports activities stars, however weekend warriors and on a regular basis athletes.
Placing on the Vanguards, I felt myself morph into Coach Taylor from Friday Night time Lights. They’re the quintessential wraparound Oakleys beloved by sports activities coaches, hardcore outside fanatics, and Patagonia-clad dads. At 66g, they’re barely extra hefty than the common Ray-Ban Meta glasses, however nonetheless really feel light-weight and safe sufficient for extra intense exercise. That’s partly as a result of the Vanguards will ship with three swappable nosepads to make sure a very good match. The design has additionally been crafted with hats and biking helmets in thoughts, which is why the management buttons are positioned beneath the arms as a substitute of above.
Talking of buttons, there’s additionally a brand new Motion Button that acts as a shortcut for the varied digicam modes. Sure, you learn that proper: modes. The Vanguards have a 12MP, 122-degree digicam positioned smack-dab within the nostril bridge, with a recording indicator mild positioned proper above it. Now you can file in 1080p with 30 frames per second for 5 minutes, 1080p at 60fps for 3 minutes, 3K at 30fps for 3 minutes, and 720p at 120fps in a brand new slo-mo mode. There’s additionally a brand new hyperlapse mode that allows you to sew collectively and compress in a type of spotlight reel. (Hyperlapse and slo-mo will are available a software program replace to all of Meta’s glasses later this fall.) There’s additionally adjustable stabilization, so you may customise primarily based on the depth of the exercise you’re doing. Athletes may program the glasses to start out recording at sure milestones — like after they’re nearing a race’s end line, for example. It’s principally like placing a GoPro in your face and not using a foolish little face-mount.
The digicam, Amato says, was the most important problem in creating the Vanguards. The will was to seize a first-person standpoint, however “from an engineering and design standpoint, it change[d] all the things utterly from the place Ray-Ban Meta had been earlier than.” For instance, to get that first-person perspective, Amato says the digicam required a a lot wider discipline of view, stronger stabilization, and 3K high quality.
The Vanguards have additionally been tweaked to cater to out of doors efficiency. The lenses are swappable, and a low-light possibility will likely be out there later this 12 months. Amato says the completely different colours are optimized for sure actions. For instance, in case you’re into fishing, you might have considered trying the blue lenses as they neutralize blue hues extra.
The audio system are 6db louder. Which may not look like a lot, however having pushed the amount, I guarantee you, they’ll get fairly loud. Amato says that the audio system had been examined on bicycles going as much as 30mph with crowds current, in addition to at highway races, in order that runners may have faith their tunes wouldn’t be drowned out on race day. In contrast to the common Ray-Ban glasses, these even have a powerful IP67 water- and sweat-resistance ranking. That means in case you fall out of a kayak, you don’t have to fret concerning the glasses getting wrecked. Battery life additionally has an estimated max of 9 hours, and 6 hours of steady music playback — sufficient for most individuals to complete a marathon. With a case, you get a complete of 36 hours and may cost roughly 50 % in 20 minutes.
However the athlete-focused options don’t cease there. Meta can be partnering with Strava and Garmin. For the previous, you may add your footage straight to the platform. You’ll additionally be capable to ask Meta’s AI about your historic Strava information. However maybe what’s cooler is that the glasses can pair immediately with sure Garmin watches. (I used to be instructed “most newer Garmins ought to work.”) You possibly can see a Meta AI icon on the Garmin watch, and, mid-run, you may ask the glasses to provide you a readout of your coronary heart price and different stats. Afterward, you may put an overlay along with your exercise’s key metrics in your video footage for sharing on social media. Garmin customers may program the glasses to robotically seize snippets at key moments — for instance, every time you end a mile.
“We needed to have Garmin and Strava [as partners] as a result of they’re leaders and since they’ve a neighborhood of sports activities individuals round them,” says Amato. “We actually like the entire concept of this eyewear as enabling these sport communities to not solely be their greatest model, but additionally to speak and file higher whereas capturing life.”
There’s extra excellent news in case you like coronary heart price zone coaching. There’s a brand new LED mild above the proper eye that turns purple in case you enterprise outdoors the goal zone for a given exercise. The LED mild may also be configured to supply pacing alerts.
I took the glasses for a quick spin on a treadmill run and used them to file common and slo-mo video. It was easy and simple through the motion button, however you can even simply ask Meta’s AI to start out recording. There was subsequent to no latency once I requested the glasses to provide me a readout on my coronary heart price. That’s not sufficient to ship an entire verdict, however my first impression is that that is a powerful function set that may enchantment to all kinds of athletes. I used to be such an enormous fan of the Bose Frames Tempo that I ran a complete half-marathon in them. I’ve felt a bit bereft since they had been discontinued. Nonetheless, these had been merely audio glasses, and I nonetheless had to make use of my cellphone to seize moments from my race. The power to condense sun shades, headphones, and a digicam into one piece of apparatus is massively interesting if you’re making an attempt to handle a water vest, salt chews, vitality goos, and sunscreen.
Amato says the response from elite athletes thus far has been extremely promising. The corporate had superstars like bicycle owner Mark Cavendish, NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and Actual Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé assist develop and supply suggestions on the system. In line with Amato, the glasses left the often opinionated Cavendish speechless over all the probabilities. Mahomes purportedly mentioned that the Vanguards “weren’t eyewear anymore” however “one thing utterly new.”
I’m no skilled athlete, and we’ll must put these to the check within the coming weeks. But when they’ll exchange my Bose Tempo? I’m right down to be the captain of Group Jabroni.
The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses can be found for preorder as we speak and can ship October twenty first.