Smart glasses - uses in vocational education

Smart glasses have been around for some time. However, they are expensive and have had many iterations with many tech companies providing various versions over the last decade. Last year, a flurry of activity generated renewed interest in smart glasses' potential. Despite a buggy official launch by meta, the Meta Ray-Ban glasses have had generally positive reviews. 

The glasses have been on sale September 30th in the US of A and early 2026 for other countries. 
Wi-Fi is required for Meta AI and importing media. However, you can still take photos and videos, listen to audio from your connected smartphone via Bluetooth, and check battery levels without Wi-Fi, though you'll need to connect to a phone's internet via cellular data to import captured media or use online features like Meta AI. 

Various spectacle companies have joint ventures with Meta and this could be the strategy that will bring smart glasses into the mainstream. Meta works with RayBan and Oakley to provide glasses across fashion categories. With Oakley, the target market is for sports and adventure, the Oakley Vanguard are sports glasses designed to be more durable and optimised for outdoor use. They connects to Garmin, extending the opportunities for outdoor real-time vlogging.

This youtube video reviews the Rayban and Oakley versions, landing on a mostly positive note.
JISC has published an overview of smart glasses and their potential in education. As with this previous article there arepros and cons for smart glasses. The JISC article undertakes a comparison of six smart glasses is undertaken. 

Overall, although the technology has been around for a while, the technical challenges 
are still presentand are being worked through. For vocational education, the integration of AI into smart glasses, 

along withAR/VR/MR need to be followed closely. The main deterrent at the moment is costs as it will 

be too costlyto equip an entire class with smart glasses in a workshop. Some trades workshops will also find 

WiFi a challenge to maintain when multimedia is being used across multiple devises. 

However, these technicaldifficulties do not mean we do not try things out. There are many other factors to 

work through, including aspects of practice-based learning safety considerations. 

We need to keep an eye on the costs of smart glasses and as they hopefully become more accessible from a 

cost perspective, be ready to pilot them.