You can trust Cyclingnews
Our experts spend countless hours testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.
I recently penned an opinion piece where I suggested that Oakley’s latest AI-enabled sunglasses, the Meta Vanguard, might actually catch on. Having tested them over the past few weeks, I’m still of that opinion, but far from being filled with excitement at the new frontiers this will open for AI-enabled cyclists up and down the land, wearing the things made me feel a bit uneasy.
They are, from a technical standpoint, quite magnificent and offer things that the best cycling glasses cannot. The audio is great, the AI is responsive and actually useful if you’re into that sort of thing, and the camera is pretty decent considering you wouldn’t know it was there unless it was pointed out to you, all while being actually good at being a pair of sunglasses, something that the likes of the Engo 2 HUD glasses fell short of.
Being able to film people without them knowing, whichever way you square it, is creepy, and that’s something I just can’t get over, no matter how novel it is to ask my glasses to send a picture of the view to my partner.
Image 1 of 6
Design and aesthetics
The Oakley Meta Vanguards look, to all intents and purposes, like any other pair of Oakleys (in the broadest sense). Unless you knew there was a load of smart gubbins going on, then you could be forgiven for thinking they were just a slightly more bulky pair of wraparound shades.
In my gold version, with the Prizm 24k lenses, they’re certainly…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…