Meta spends big to make its Ray-Ban glasses a true mainstream hit

Feb 04, 2025 03:54 AM - 5 days ago 6584

Victoria Song

Victoria Song is a elder newsman focusing connected wearables, wellness tech, and much pinch 13 years of experience. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.

Meta isn’t awkward astir its ambitions to make its Ray-Ban smart glasses a mainstream gadget. So overmuch so, it’s made not 1 but two Super Bowl ads featuring not one, but two Marvel actors. (And Kris Jenner.) And arsenic a small cherry connected top, Meta announced it’s creating a constricted version Super Bowl type of the glasses that won’t beryllium for waste to the wide public.

You tin already watch the first of the 2 Super Bowl ads, which features Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt causing chaos successful Kris Jenner’s individual creation collection. The actors are shown asking the Meta AI to place creation pieces, arsenic good arsenic construe overseas languages. Jenner, meanwhile, is shown asking the AI glasses to ringing up her lawyer aft an incident pinch a $6.2 cardinal banana.

This is the 2nd clip Meta has created a constricted version brace tied to an event.

In a blog astir the ads, Meta says the constricted version glasses will beryllium a brace of matte achromatic Wayfarers pinch either gold, mirror-like lenses aliases lenses featuring the squad colors of the Super Bowl finalists. The glasses will besides travel pinch a custom-etched case. However, they won’t beryllium disposable for purchase, hinting that these will apt beryllium seeded to celebrities and influencers to drum up buzz.

There are a mates things astatine play here. For starters, smart glasses person travel a agelong measurement pinch the nationalist from the debacle that was Google Glass. Meta announced past week that the Ray-Bans person sold complete 1 cardinal units successful 2024. That’s the type of occurrence for an emerging gadget class that could warrant an costly Super Bowl ad. Second, Meta has precocious shown it’s keen connected pushing that occurrence further utilizing caller styles and constricted version versions, not dissimilar really Nike aliases different sneaker companies create hype. Meta will purportedly merchandise Oakley-branded smart glasses later this twelvemonth for athletes, and past year, it besides had a limited-edition translucent exemplary of the Ray-Bans for its Meta Connect event.

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