How much money is Meta losing on every pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses?
Meta's camera smart glasses should cost $1,000. Why are Ray-Ban and Meta charging only $300?
I’ve been using Ray-Ban Meta glasses for just over a month. I love them so much that I decided to return them. Let me explain.
When I ordered the glasses in late October, I got one of the cheaper options — in my case the Wayfarer frame with a semi-transparent blue “Jeans” design and “Dusty Blue” lenses. The price was $329. After tax I paid $353.68.
Shocked by the long battery life, surprising comfort and super high audio quality, I realized that I wanted to wear them much more often, specifically to replace AirPods for listing to podcasts and music and making phone calls.
The problem was that, because they were sunglasses, it was weird and uncomfortable to wear them at night or indoors. I wanted to wear them while driving at night and while doing the dishes.
So because I was within the no-questions-asked return period, I returned them and ordered a pair compatible with my intentions.
This time, I ordered the same frames, but with transition lenses (which turn to sunglasses only in bright light) and my distance prescription.
The combination of a prescription with transition, minus a promotion discount for prescription orders, added $400 or so to the total, so my new Ray-Ban Meta glasses cost me $749.90 (because I don’t have insurance that covers vision care).
Still, the lowest pre-tax base price for Ray-Ban Meta glasses is: $299.
That’s an absurdly, shockingly low price. Consider:
Regular “dumb” Ray-Bay Wayfarer glasses start at $188.
Google Glass cost $1,500 ten years ago.
Amazon’s new audio-only (no camera) smart glasses start at $254.99.
If you conceive of Ray-Ban Meta glasses as Ray-Bans with added electronics (and much sturdier frame and hinges), they’re charging only $111 dollars extra for the 12 MP camera, Bluetooth and Wifi radios, battery, battery case, touchpad, 2 speakers, 5-microphones, 32 GB of storage and microprocessor.
If you compare them to Amazon’s new glasses, they’re only $44 dollars more for the camera, which enables live-streaming to Instagram and Facebook and will be useable next year (with a promised software update) for AI-identification of things you see in the real world. And Amazon is famous for low-balling the prices of its Amazon-branded gadgets.
And, finally, compare them with Google Glass (although Google Glass had a screen you could see floating in front of you, they were unsightly and too dorky to wear in polite company) the price of Glass was $1,500, not $299. And Ray-Ban Meta glasses are perfectly acceptable to wear just about anywhere.
It’s clear the $299 starting price for Ray-Ban Meta glasses is totally out of whack with what you get. We can only assume (since Meta won’t say) that Meta is losing at least a couple hundred dollars on each pair sold. It’s got to be a heavily subsidised product.
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