Meta Oakley Vanguard Smart Glasses for Athletes

At Meta Connect 2025, Meta and Oakley unveiled the Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses, a sporty wearable aimed at runners, cyclists, and outdoor athletes. Priced at $499, the glasses go on sale October 21 and pack camera upgrades, longer battery life, and new integrations targeted at performance tracking.

What’s new in the Vanguard

Meta redesigned the sport-focused frames with a single large front lens instead of dual corner cameras, boosting video capture and field of view. The Oakley Meta Vanguard records up to 3K video and uses a 12-megapixel sensor with a 122° wide-angle lens. On-audio and durability fronts, Meta bumped speaker output and wind-optimized mics while giving the glasses an IP67 rating.

• 3K video capture and a 12MP camera with 122° wide-angle lens
• Up to nine hours battery, six hours continuous music, plus a charging case that adds 36 hours and can fast-charge glasses to 50% in 20 minutes
• Open-ear speakers, five-microphone array tuned to minimize wind noise
• IP67 dust and water resistance and Oakley PRIZM™ lens tech for sun, wind, and dust protection
• Programmable button under the frame that triggers custom AI prompts via the Meta AI app

Design and real-world use

The Vanguard’s wraparound unified lens improves forward visibility and video framing for action footage. Meta placed all control buttons underneath the frames so athletes can comfortably wear helmets during activity. Oakley’s PRIZM lenses and the IP67 rating make these glasses aimed squarely at outdoor use—and at users who want to capture and share performance moments without bulky gear.

Integrations and athlete features

A key differentiator is integration with athlete ecosystems: Vanguard works with Garmin smartwatches to surface metrics like heart rate and pace on demand, and with Strava to overlay performance data onto photos and videos for immediate sharing. Users can also invoke custom AI prompts with the programmable button to summarize a run, tag highlights, or ask voice queries mid-ride.

Availability, price, and sibling products

Oakley Meta Vanguard will retail for $499 starting October 21 in the U.S., Canada, much of Europe, Australia and select other markets, with launches in Mexico, India, Brazil, and the UAE to follow. The announcement comes three months after Meta’s Oakley Meta HSTN and alongside new Ray-Ban smart glasses and a wearable wristband showcased at Meta Connect.

Why this matters

The Vanguard signals how wearables are becoming more specialized: higher-quality video capture, sport-tuned audio, robust durability, and deeper integrations with fitness ecosystems. For device makers, fitness platforms, and teams building athlete experiences, the launch points to new expectations around data fidelity, real-time UI/UX for metrics, and privacy controls when sharing sensor and video data. Expect partnerships between hardware and software providers to focus on seamless telemetry, low-friction sharing, and regulatory-compliant data handling as these devices reach mainstream athletes.