Oakley Meta HSTN Limited Edition review: a polarizing choice

It was a sweltering Sunday in Brooklyn. Instead of being wasteful and spending $10 on a five-minute Uber, I decided to walk the 20 minutes to a cutesy Japanese stationery cafe with an even cutesier name. Despite the 85 percent humidity, my vanity demanded I wear a full face of makeup with a snatched nose contour. Sweat was leaking out of every pore, melting said nose contour into my sunglasses. Foundation ran down my neck and stained my shirt collar. I’m pretty sure all of Williamsburg could see I had pit stains.

So I was taken aback when a suave artiste walking a French bulldog stopped me, pointed to the Oakley Meta HSTN Limited Edition sunglasses on my face, and said, “Yo, those are siiick — do you love them?!”

They proceeded to rattle off some questions. I was flabbergasted to realize this person was genuinely curious and eagerly wanted to hear my impressions. I managed a “Just got them! I think they’re cool?” before scuttling away like the awkward turtle I am.

My flabbers were even more gasted when I realized this was the first time anyone had ever noticed that I was wearing a pair of smart glasses.

I’ve been thinking about that interaction a lot while testing the Oakley glasses. After so many years as a smart glasses skeptic, it’s wild to see how successful Meta’s been with the Ray-Bans — the Oakleys’ predecessor. EssilorLuxottica said in its earnings results earlier this week that sales have tripled year over year. And not just among techies. Among regular people. Just the other day, a friend sent me a TikTok with footage from a Stray Kids concert recorded by the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Shoulda done this for our show, they’d texted. A quick search showed that someone at our exact show, seated not that far from us, actually had.

When I first reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, I knew something had shifted. But it’s mind-boggling that under two years later, Meta has launched multiple limited editions and a Super Bowl commercial, let alone an option from another brand to reach new audiences.

Where Ray-Bans are classic and versatile, Oakleys conjure images of Olympic cyclists or Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. The young’uns have also glommed onto the brand as Y2K fashion is all the rage again.

Stylistically, the Oakleys are more polarizing. Not just because they have PRIZM lenses, either. Both my spouse and bestie scrunched their noses at the concept of white sunglasses. Multiple friends and coworkers pointed out the slanted area by the nose bridge, asking, “Why the hell does it do that?” (The answer is that Oakley’s regular HSTN glasses do that. It’s an Oakley thing.) Anyone can rock these, provided they bring a bit of swagger. Many people won’t feel comfortable with such a bold look.

Ironically, the Oakley case is much more boring and feels cheaper in your hand than the Meta Ray-Bans case. It’s also much harder to get the glasses out. I was afraid I’d break the charging contact while pulling them out.

The main differences are a bump up in video resolution from 1080p to 3K, roughly double the battery to eight hours on a single charge, and Oakley’s PRIZM lenses on the limited edition. The extra battery is nice, since that’s one of the main complaints about Meta glasses for power users. Meanwhile, the PRIZM lenses enhance contrast and certain colors. It sounds like a marketing spiel, but I don’t think I’d truly experienced green until I saw the way trees and grass look through these glasses. The kicker is that all these things make the Oakleys more expensive. The standard Oakleys will start at $399, compared to $299 for the Ray-Bans. This limited edition version costs $499.

That’s hard to swallow. I understand boosting 3K video resolution and battery life. Oakleys are more likely to appeal to outdoorsy folks. Those are the kinds of updates that crowd would want. But photo quality is identical. 3K videos are noticeably sharper, and you’d get decent action footage if you can figure out framing. (Once again, I was foiled by the corner of my baseball cap, my bangs, and a tendency to tilt my head.) Filming in 3K is a battery guzzler. Recording three 2.5-minute 3K videos of my cat and uploading them via Wi-Fi to my phone ate a whopping 20 percent of my battery.

Our supervising video producer, Vjeran Pavic, copped a pair for himself and had the same issues with framing, but he adds that everything has a “very HDR look.” That’s not a bad thing. It’s the right move as everything needs to pop, be simple, and have consistent exposure. The benefit is hands-free, point-of-view convenience. It’s never going to trump the quality of a high-end phone or action cam.

The Ray-Bans and Oakleys have the same number of mics and placement, but may fit your face differently. I sound clearer on calls from the Ray-Bans. The glasses have different nose pads, so because of my low nose bridge, I ended up sounding muffled on the Oakleys. You can fix this, however, in the mic troubleshooting settings.

I know what I’d say now if I could travel back in time to that street corner in Williamsburg.

I don’t love these glasses, Mr. Ludicrously Stylish Brooklyn Man. A more accurate answer is, I appreciate them. While they fit more easily into my life than I’d anticipated, they’re more a “nice to have” than a “must have.” As a runner, nothing will quite beat my Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 for open-ear audio, but I’ve enjoyed using these on my summer runs when the sun is punishingly bright. But the real question, sir, is how much do you like AI? How much do you trust Meta?

These smart glasses now connect to the Meta AI app instead of the Meta View companion app. Meta purposefully calls these AI glasses, so you can rest assured that association isn’t going anywhere. There are now privacy stipulations where you can’t opt out of voice recordings being stored in the cloud, among other things. That feels… dystopian, but for the blind and low-vision community, this might be relatively small potatoes. These glasses and their Live AI features have empowered them to live more independently. For content creators, the camera and livestreaming capabilities open new creative avenues.

If that sounds appealing, go for the Ray-Bans, because they’re more versatile for indoor and outdoor wear and are $100 to $200 less. That is, unless you’re much more of an outdoorsy or content creator type. In that case, the 3K resolution and extra battery life make more sense.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Unreasonably Chic for a Heat Wave. I’m going to power-walk back to AC, put my reviewer hat back on, and ponder this conversation and what it means that you could tell I was wearing smart glasses. Hey, Meta, can you tell me where the nearest bodega is?