Meta Connect: Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), Oakley Meta Vanguard & Hyperscape Capture

Meta’s annual developer conference and product showcase event, Meta Connect, is scheduled to be held from September 17 to 18, 2025—and on the first day, the tech giant unveiled a series of upgrades to its existing smart glasses, as well as the new and shiny Meta Ray-Ban Display and Meta Neural Band.

While the new product showed off Meta’s innovation and years of hard work, the existing line’s updates were similarly impressive.

So, what’s new with Meta?
 

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2)

Meta upgraded its coveted Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to the next generation.

According to Meta, Ray-Ban Meta glasses have become the #1 selling AI glasses in the world, with millions of units sold since launch.

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) comes with double the battery life of its predecessor, which allows it to last up to eight hours with typical use, with users being able to charge the smart glasses up to 50% in just 20 minutes. Furthermore, its charging case provides an additional 48 hours of charging on the go.

It also sports 3K Ultra HD video capture, allowing users to capture sharper, smoother, and more vivid videos with ultrawide HDR, up to 60 frames per second and over 2x more pixels.

As for audio, Meta revealed conversation focus, which amplifies the voice of the person the user is talking to, helping to better cut out ambient noise. This will also be available as a software update on Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN glasses. Even live translation is being expanded to include German and Portuguese, enabling users to have conversations in six languages. It can work in airplane mode, too, if the user has downloaded the language pack.

Meta promises that it’s left in all the features that users love but brings in “under-the-hood improvements that will make them an even better companion.”

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) is available for purchase now for $379 (starting), comes in three new limited-time-only seasonal colors (Cosmic Blue, Mystic Violet, and Asteroid Grey), and can be bought from meta.com and Ray-Ban.com. Meta is also bringing the glasses to Switzerland and the Netherlands, with Brazil coming soon.  

 

Oakley Meta Vanguard

Earlier this year, Meta partnered with Oakley to launch (and first tease) the Oakley Meta line of smart glasses that were designed to be Performance AI glasses.

Now, at Meta Connect, the two companies are coming out with another product in the same category, which is poised to usher in an “era of Athletic Intelligence.”

Called Oakley Meta Vanguard, these smart glasses are a brand-new line of Performance AI glasses designed to give athletes a competitive edge.

Designed for high-intensity sports, the glasses feature Meta AI capabilities; an action-ready camera; integrations with fitness apps; powerful open-ear speakers with immersive audio; a five-microphone array optimized to reduce wind noise while on calls, messaging, or using Meta AI; come with three replaceable nose pads (low- and high-bridge), sport Meta's most water-resistant frames.

Furthermore, Meta has integrated Garmin and Strava with Meta AI, which enables users to ask Meta AI how they're doing or get updates on specific stats in real time, all hands-free and screen-free, or leverage a new video autocapture feature.

It offers nine hours of battery life and up to six hours of continuous music playback. It also comes with a charging case that can provide an additional 36 hours of charge on the go, which can charge the glasses to 50% in 20 minutes.

It uses Oakley PRIZM Lens technology that can block out sun, wind, and dust, and comes in four frame and lens color combos—24K, Black, Road, and Sapphire.

Oakley Meta Vanguard will be available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, with availability in Mexico, India, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates expected to come soon.

Users can pre-order these smart glasses now online at Meta or Oakley for $499—to be launched on October 21, 2025.

 

Meta Horizon Hyperscape Capture (Beta)

Last year, Meta introduced a demo of Hyperscape at Meta Connect.

Hyperscale allows users to create digital replicas of their physical spaces, with high visual quality and realism, which are viewable on Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets.

This year, the company built on that, rolling out Hyperscape Capture (Beta) in Early Access, allowing users to scan a room in just a few minutes and then turn that into an immersive, photorealistic world.

The Beta version will also allow users to check out photorealistic digital spaces created by others and invite others to their space. It will be available only to Quest 3 and Quest 3S users who are 18+.

Meta also spoke about Meta Horizon Engine, which has been built from scratch and optimized to help bring the metaverse to life by powering better graphics, faster performance, and more advanced worlds. Developers and creators can use it to easily generate nearly infinite connected spaces with realistic physics and interactions. It can also now support over 100 people in a single space at the same time—5x more than the previous version.

Meta Horizon Studio, which is a new editor and hub for creator capabilities, comes with new GenAI tools that can generate mesh, textures, TypeScript, audio, skyboxes, and more with simple text prompts, while an agentic AI assistant makes the creation process even faster and easier.

Ahead of this, Meta is bringing new VR games to its Quest headset, including Marvel’s Deadpool VR, ILM’s Star Wars: Beyond Victory, Resolution Games’ Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked, and nDreams Elevation’s Reach.

Meta launched a new entertainment hub called Meta Horizon TV, which will see them partner with numerous entertainment producers, bringing top movies, TV, live sports, music, and more to users’ headsets. This includes Disney+, ESPN, Hulu, Universal Pictures, Nexus Studios, and horror producer Blumhouse.

What do you think about Meta’s product updates? Which ones are you excited to try out?

Let us know in the comments below!