Technologies

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Could’ve Been Incredible. Here’s Why It’s Not.

Chinese developer Leenzee’s first Soulslike game, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, overcomplicated formula hinders its greatness.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the latest high-profile Soulslike game, this time coming from Chinese developer Leenzee. Unlike some of the most recent Soulslike releases, Wuchang is more faithful to the formula created by FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, but the changes it does make might be the game’s downfall.

Wuchang is an ambitious Soulslike, which helps it stand out in what’s one of the newest and most popular subgenres around. What keeps it from being great is that all these new systems are a chore to actually understand and use. I’m sure that if players perfectly grasp a balance of the systems, they could make a character with some amazing capabilities, yet it’s hard to reach that sweet spot playing through the game.

Just to get it out of the way, Wuchang’s story is like a lot of Soulslike games. You play as the titular Bai Wuchang, a pirate warrior suffering from amnesia who has to fight through different areas in ancient China during the Ming dynasty. People have been victims of «feathering,» the game’s sickness that makes the infected sprout feathers and eventually turn into monsters. Wuchang can harness the power of feathering, making her the ideal warrior to uncover what’s going on.

Is this a confusing and vague storyline? Yes, because it’s a Soulslike and that’s practically a requirement. The people you meet speak vaguely about other people and subjects that don’t make sense until you piece them together with item descriptions, clues found throughout the areas and environmental story elements. It’s hardly a storyline that you could fully figure out in a casual playthrough, so I’ll be depending on the lore guys on YouTube to piece the story together in the days and weeks after the game’s release.

Progression system has too much going on

What’s important for Wuchang — and any Soulslike that aims to stand out in the subgenre — is the gameplay, and it’s certainly unique. It’s dynamic but almost to a fault, with a lot of complexity getting in the way of combat flow.

As Wuchang, you have access to five classes of weapons: axes that do big damage but are slow; longswords that do good damage while allowing for parries; twin swords that allow for quick attacks at the cost of lower damage; one-handed swords that are in the midrange for damage and speed; spears that do solid damage while also being able to poke at a longer distance.

Throughout the game, you’ll come across different weapons of each type. There’s 25 in total, and they all have a unique look, abilities and stats from each other. So you’re not as overwhelmed as, say, in Elden Ring, where you have more than 300 weapons to choose from.

To make full use of these weapons, however, you have to work your way through the skill tree, and this tree represents a hurdle for the game as it overcomplicates things.

The skill tree reminds me more of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. It’s split into six paths, one for each weapon and one for general-purpose use with universal upgrades like adding to your healing flasks, being able to do more damage with certain effects, and getting more magic points. Along each path are also various stat improvements like adding an extra point to strength, endurance, agility and so on.

When you acquire enough red mercury, the souls or currency in the game, you can gain a level, providing a red essence that unlocks a spot on the grid. You need to go down these paths to power up Wuchang as well as the weapons, as improved attacks and mastery of a weapon also require going down each path. Then, at a certain point of unlocking more spots on the grid, the path extends to give you even more stats, abilities and so on.

If you’re confused by reading this, it’s going to be just as confusing when you try it out for yourself. It’s one thing to level up a character and put points into various stats, but it’s another to level up and realize that you need to spend skill points unlocking a path to get more healing flasks.

Where the leveling system messes with you is when you don’t unlock a certain path that you need for a boss. One boss in particular was kicking my ass, as it’s the first boss you need to use deflecting, or parrying, to beat (unless you’re a Soulslike ace who can play perfectly). I had gone down the axe upgrade path and didn’t realize that I was ill-equipped for the fight. While there is a tip message that comes up mentioning deflecting, this was the first time the game even mentioned this capability. After failing to beat this boss for hours, I decided to take a long look at the grid and saw that the deflect ability was a few upgrades into the longsword path.

Fortunately, you can respec these points at a shrine for free, which I did, and I defeated the boss after a few more tries. Mind you, I could have beaten the boss the other way — playing perfectly — but deflecting and parrying to expose the boss’s weakness was far easier. And prior to this, the bosses weren’t giving me much trouble, just requiring a few deaths in order to understand their pattern.

This upgrade grid is super interesting, but there are far too many abilities and benefits that should be unlocked from the start to help reduce the frustration when playing.

Madness is making me mad

Another interesting idea in Wuchang is the madness system. This is a play on the Humanity and Kindling found in the original Souls games, with a bit of Insight from Bloodborne — a sort of passive stat that changes how the game world evolves as you play. As you die or defeat certain enemies, your madness will increase. As your madness increases, you can become more powerful. In that path I mentioned about gaining more healing flasks, there are unlockable traits where, if you have a certain amount of madness, you do more damage or gain some extra ability.

Madness is based on your level, so the higher the level you are, the higher the maximum madness increases. If your madness is low, you can even acquire a certain amount of madness to buy an item at a shrine.

So what happens when your madness is at max? Well, that’s a bad thing for two reasons. The first is that you’ll do more damage, but you’ll also receive more damage. This is going to be great for the hardcore Soulslike player with perfect dodge and parry timing. I’m sure speedrunners will make use of this trait. However, when you’re getting your ass kicked by a boss, the last thing you want is for them to hit you for more damage.

Arguably the most interesting part of this madness system is that if you die at, or near, max madness, the spot where you died that has some of your leftover red mercury will take the form of an evil doppelganger that you’ll have to fight. Defeat it and you’ll get an item as well as removing all of your madness.

It’s an interesting feature, but it’s also a pain. To get rid of the madness, you can kill certain humanoid enemies, but sometimes to kill those people, you need to kill non-humanoid enemies, which increases madness. Alternatively, you can find and buy items that will reduce madness at a certain temple, but those aren’t widely available.

Where madness really causes a problem is with bosses. If you die repeatedly at a boss and your death spot is in the boss arena, the doppelganger won’t show up, so you’re kind of stuck with max madness unless you decide to go get killed somewhere else, take down the doppelganger and be back to zero madness.

Pretty but punishing

Wuchang performs as well as any Soulslike game when it comes to the action and graphics. The speed of the gameplay is just a step below Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, FromSoftware’s parrying-intensive Soulslike, but also a step above its other popular title, Bloodborne. It’s fast-paced, but it’s also dynamic.

I say it’s dynamic because of the Spirit Points system, which is the game’s version of mana. Unlike most Soulslike games, you don’t have a mana pool to draw from when casting magic or doing special attacks. Instead, you need to acquire Spirit Points, and the easiest way to do this is by dodging. A perfectly timed dodge nets you a point that will let you use one special ability or one basic spell. On the grid, there are spots to unlock more points as well as more ways to get the points from deflecting attacks, doing a certain combo or having a certain amount of madness.

This system requires players to be more active in fights, so someone can’t make a glass cannon magic character right off the bat who fights at a distance, although I’m sure there is a build where that’s possible in the late game. You need to really get in there and mix it up with the enemies, which I can appreciate.

Then come the visuals, and Wuchang has some great-looking scenes. Bosses in the game are also unique in both their attacks and visuals, something highly prized by Soulslike players.

The game’s presentation overall is on par with any of the AAA titles out there. The English voice acting is a little weak, but people talk so little in the game that it practically doesn’t matter.

I played the game on a standard PS5, and there were instances when the PS5 did seem to have some issues with dropped frames. It happened after a certain amount of playing and not due to too much going on-screen.

Wuchang is a great effort by Leenzee. While the game won’t revolutionize the Soulslike genre, it does the next best thing by offering some ideas that they, or maybe another developer, can refine. Maybe it will become a mainstay for the genre in future games. If anything, I believe a Wuchang sequel could be an incredible game if it happens. But right now, the formula just isn’t there yet.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers comes out on July 23 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles for $50. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day 1.

Technologies

This Rumored Feature Could Make NotebookLM Essential for Work as Well as School

NotebookLM takes another step toward being the do-it-all AI tool for work and school.

Since it launched, NotebookLM has been aimed at students. While just about anyone can use the AI tool to some benefit, it’s a great study buddy thanks to an assortment of features for the classroom. But a promising new feature may help with your next work presentation: Slides.

Powered by Gemini, NotebookLM can help you brainstorm ideas and generate audio or video overviews. That sounds like most AI tools, but NotebookLM is different. You can provide it with your own material — documents, websites, YouTube videos and more — and it’ll only use those sources to answer your questions and generate content. Adding a slide generator to such a tool would be a solid, professional power-up.

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Google already has its own slide deck creation tool, but NotebookLM could make it even easier to create them. Using your uploaded sources and the recently integrated Nano Banana image generator, the ability to create a slide deck on the fly could soon be on its way.

The tech and AI tool-focused site Testing Catalog recently spotted an unreleased and incomplete Slide tool. Not all of the features seem to be available, but it’d be easy to assume you’ll be able to create a slide deck based on your uploaded documents with just a few clicks. It’ll also likely allow you to further customize the deck by giving NotebookLM specific instructions and topics within your sources to focus on.

That’s not all, though. Another, similar feature might also be on the way. Also spotted was an option to generate an infographic — allowing you to create a visual chart or image based on your data sources. We’ll have to wait and see when either of these features goes live, but NotebookLM remains a robust tool that has little competition, and I expect it’ll only get better.

Technologies

I’m a Longtime Jackbox Games Player. The New Party Pack 11 Might Be My Favorite

I spoke with the Pack Lead about Party Pack 11, which might be the most well-rounded collection yet.

The Jackbox Party Pack 11, launching Thursday, Oct. 23, offers the series’ trademark variety of casual party games, from trivia to drawing to joke writing. I own a handful of these bundles, breaking them out whenever I have a group of friends over and we want something with lower stakes and less of a time commitment than playing a full D&D session or even breaking out a game of Camel Up.

The great thing about a Jackbox title is that it mixes five different mini-games into one package, meaning almost anyone can find at least one they enjoy among the variety. The trouble is that the group may not always enjoy the whole pack, or even most of it. There may be only one or two of the five that really click with your group, perhaps neglecting the more experimental or complex challenges.

«There’s a lot of different people out there,» Rich Gallup, director of production at Jackbox Games told me. «There’s a lot of different types of parties [with different ways they] play our games, and not every game is gonna fit every group.» Gallup referred to the «power of the pack» — the idea that each Party Pack should have a game for everyone, and in some cases, more than one game.

Party Pack 11 manages the remarkable feat of being pretty even throughout. I played through the mini-games ahead of launch with a group of friends I would describe as «abundantly familiar» with prior entries in the Jackbox series. After playing through the entirety of the new Party Pack, we all agreed that almost every game felt equally interesting to us… even if we came out with some early favorites that we’ll probably go back to over and over again.

All the games in Jackbox Party Pack 11

Hear Say

The standout of the new Party Pack is Hear Say, a game where your group is asked to record sound effects in response to prompts like [example] and [example]. Then you vote on the best recording.

«It’s a whole new form of creativity for our players,» Gallup said. «Writing jokes is hard. Drawing is hard. Making a fart noise, y’know… maybe that’s a little more universal. And the game has shown you can make fart noises over a lot of things, and they make a lot of people laugh.»

The simplicity is a huge part of the charm. Unlike Jackbox staples like Quiplash, which asks you to carefully craft cerebral (or crass) jokes, Hear Say is all about blurting silly little sounds into your phone. Pretend to almost sneeze. Forget your coworker’s name. You only have about 5 seconds for each sound effect, so brevity is king.

Hear Say also gives you plenty of opportunities to make other players laugh. My group heard each other recording their sound effects, and sometimes had to redo our own because we burst out laughing in the middle of recording. If there’s a particularly popular sound effect, you can also replay it on demand after hearing everyone’s responses before voting is finished.

The result is a characteristically delightful Jackbox jumble of chaos, aided by some great details like the animations of your chosen avatar whenever your recording plays. I would fire up Party Pack 11 just for Hear Say, and could probably play it several times in a row without feeling bored of the gimmick.

Doominate

Look, I’m sure you’re not a bad person, but I’m equally sure you’d find it fun, occasionally and in small doses, to act like one. Doominate prompts you with nice, wholesome things, and then asks other players to ruin those things by twisting them out from under you. Then it ups the stakes by asking you to list extra things you enjoy so other people can spoil them. It’s a more personal brand of ruination.

Things come back around at the end when you get to un-ruin a prompt for someone. So maybe you ruined «puppies» with the answer «puppies… running away from you.» You can redeem yourself by twisting it back into a semblance of its original shape: «puppies… running away from you… into your home together!»

It’s a fun variation on the joke-writing format seen in prior Jackbox mini-games like Quiplash or Fibbage. And while you might wrinkle some relationships in the early rounds, the un-ruination in the final round gives you a chance to smooth things out again.

Gallup said the final, good-natured twist came through playtesting. «There was a lot of testing of, like, do we like how the game ends if you’re just ruining things, or do we like that, like, upnote at the end of, like, eh we made it better — we’re still friends, right? And through our playtesting, that stuck.»

My group liked it as a warm-up game to get the jokes turning in our brains. It’s a pretty zippy game, too, which makes it easy to come back to.

Cookie Haus

One of my favorite styles of Jackbox Games is games like Tee K.O., where you’re drawing something on your phone and matching the drawing with delectably funny titles. Cookie Haus asks you to do that by decorating cookies.

Customers will walk into the Cookie Haus with prompts for weird specific cookies they want. For example: «Mermaids, the wrong way.» Then it’s up to you to choose a cookie shape and get to frosting (and naming) their wildest dreams.

The music and art design also make it a pleasant game to play.

«Cookie Haus is magical. It’s cozy,» Gallup said. «The act of icing a cookie just feels so delightful. It just feels really good. It looks delicious.»

The cookies look surprisingly realistic, with smooth textures on the icing, and a variety of sprinkles you can place on top. I enjoyed the flexibility of working with different colors or sprinkles, but watch out for the restriction of only being able to undo your single most recent icing stroke or sprinkling. My whole group struggled with that.

Be prepared to make revisions to cookies later in the game, giving you a chance to improve upon (or, depending on your mood, totally ruin) someone else’s creation. Overall, it’s a great game for when you just want to doodle and maybe get a few chuckles out of it. I’ve been mentally sketching out cookie abominations since I last played.

Suspectives

Suspectives has everyone fill out surveys about themselves and then secretly casts one person as a criminal while the rest of the group is tasked with interrogating everyone as survey info about the criminal slowly rolls in.

Candidly, social dedication games are not my thing — I’m in the camp of people that finds them more stressful than fun. So Suspectives is the one game in Party Pack 11 that I don’t expect to replay much, although I did find it slightly less stressful than other games in the genre.

Gallup acknowledged that challenge. «We knew it needed to be a game where someone like you and I, who don’t love lying, could have fun and, at the very least, hide a little bit. And the surveys and the pacing allows for that. Generally, you only have to stand up to one round of grilling, more or less, maybe two. And if you can make it through that one, I’ve found, personally, I can do OK.»

What I appreciated most about Suspectives was the fun Noir-ish atmosphere. The game has a strong flavor, and if anything brings me back, it’s most likely to be that. But I did also enjoy filling out the surveys and having a more structured game instead of being forced to argue nonstop for 20 minutes about who the criminal was.

If you like social deduction games, there are a few neat inclusions in Suspectives, notably the ability to reveal one person’s answer to see if they’re telling the truth. These extra twists can mix up the formula and keep things interesting.

Legends of Trivia

While Hear Say is my favorite game in the pack, Legends of Trivia is the one I expect to play the most. Partly because it supports two players, which means my wife and I can pick it up at any time, but also because it blends together two things I love: trivia and roleplaying games.

It’s also the first time Jackbox is making trivia collaborative.

«The goal was: We want people to work together on trivia,» Gallup said. «We learned very quickly that making a collaborative trivia game is a little harder than a competitive trivia game. Because if it’s collaborative, there’s almost always going to be someone who knows the answer. And so this is also likely Jackbox’s most difficult trivia game, because you don’t want that one person who’s going to answer every single question. (Which is me. I’m that person.)»

Legends of Trivia starts unlike any other trivia game, asking you to choose your character, complete with stats that affect the game. Health gives you more of a safety net, attack rewards you more for getting answers right, and gold gives you resources to pick up items.

Then you set out on your adventure, where you’ll be stopped by trivia-obsessed monsters. Answer their questions correctly and you’ll deal damage to them and gain gold. Answering incorrectly means you miss an opportunity for damage, and you lose some health and gold. You can shop for items along the way, trading gold for trinkets that might heal your character or give you hints on tough questions.

Survive your trek and the game will measure the gold you acquired to determine whether you’ve reached «legendary» status.

My group loved the combination of collaboration and individual choice in a trivia game. It’s up to you to buy your own items (or save your gold). Don’t agree with the consensus answer? Everyone answers individually, so you’ll either bask in the glory of being the smartest person in the room… or be yelled at by your party because you’re the reason the monster didn’t die this turn.

Legends of Trivia also has the distinction of being an uncommonly long Jackbox game. While trivia tends to run a little longer than more joke-based entries, Legends of Trivia has three different levels for you to explore, each one taking around 20 to 30 minutes to complete, so a full run might reach an hour and a half. If you don’t want to trivia for that long, you can take a smaller slice, but I like the opportunity to keep going, similar to starting a «sequel» at the end of a Trivia Murder Party round.

Turn it up to 11

I’ve spent a lot of time in Jackbox games, and I expect Party Pack 11 to quickly rise near the top of my most-played list. Hear Say and Legends of Trivia tickle different parts of my brain and will both keep me coming back, and while I have the game open, there’s little reason not to also throw in a few rounds of Doominate and Cookie Haus.

«Whenever you create something, you never believe it’s good until it’s out. So we’re really excited for the game to come out and for people to hopefully tell us it’s good,» Gallup said, before adding a characteristic Jackbox quip: «But if they don’t, we’ll be ready for that because we’re creators.»

Jackbox Party Pack 11 launches on Oct. 23 for all major platforms.

Technologies

The Oakley Meta Vanguard Glasses Had Me Feeling Like an Undercover Superhero

Review: Meta’s $500 Oakley Vanguards hide their superpowers in a sleek exterior with Garmin integration that makes them even more appealing to fitness-first thrill seekers.

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Written by Vanessa Hand Orellana

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Vanessa Hand Orellana Lead Writer

Vanessa is a lead writer at CNET, reviewing and writing about the latest smartwatches and fitness trackers. She joined the brand first as an on-camera reporter for CNET’s Spanish-language site, then moved on to the English side to host and produce some of CNET’s videos and YouTube series. When she’s not testing out smartwatches or dropping phones, you can catch her on a hike or trail run with her family.

Expertise Consumer Technology, Smart Home, Family, Apps, Wearables

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Oakley Meta Vanguard AI Glasses

$499 at Meta

Pros

Sleek and weatherproof design
Hands-free video capture
Garmin integration elevates fitness metrics
9-hour battery life with fast charging

Cons

Setup can be tricky with multiple apps
Niche use case
Video capture lags on command

As a practical frugalist who’s never owned more than a gas-station-quality pair of sunglasses, getting to test a pair of Oakleys already felt like I was living in some kind of alternate universe. And the fact that they pack the latest tech launched them straight into superhero status. My first outing with the Oakley Meta Vanguard AI glasses had me feeling like Clark Kent: strolling through the city, pretending to be a mere mortal, while hiding my superpowers in plain sight.

Unlike Clark Kent’s inconspicuous black-rimmed frames, the $500 Vanguard sunglasses curve around your eyes as streamlined shields. They’re styled like the «wraparound shades» usually associated with performance sports like skiing or running, except these come fully loaded with Meta AI and Garmin integration, making them the first glasses geared for nerds and thrill seekers alike. They’re tough enough to handle the elements, yet smart enough to deliver real-time training stats in your ear as you hit the trails or slopes. You can also play music, take calls and document all your action shots completely hands-free.

These are by no means Meta’s first smart glasses. The company has been experimenting with wearable eyewear (virtual, augmented and everything in between) for over a decade. What’s new, and the reason they landed on my desk (as a health and fitness wearables reviewer), is the fitness integration.

Garmin, the leader in performance-focused smartwatches, brings the serious fitness clout and deep training data that Meta lacks. Together, they have a real shot at expanding beyond the early tech adopters and hardcore athlete crowd and reaching the mass-market territory currently ruled by the Apple Watches, Fitbits and Galaxy Watches of the world.

This first attempt gets close, but it’s still niche. Unless you’re moving so fast you can’t afford even a split-second distraction, you’ll probably still reach for your phone for better photos and glance at your watch for stats, which you still need to lug with you for the whole experience to work in the first place. Plus, getting them all to play nice together isn’t exactly easy. It took me three failed workouts before Meta AI, the glasses and my Garmin watch finally started communicating. But once they did, everything clicked into place.

The glasses’ true potential lies in this hands-free trifecta of audio playback, media recording and real-time fitness coaching spread before your eyes and curving around your ears. And even if they’re not for everyone yet, these glasses offer a glimpse of how wearables and phones are literally coming to a head.

One thing to note: This isn’t intended to be a review of Meta AI (the voice assistant that powers the glasses). For that, you can check out our in-depth review of Meta AI. As a general rule, though, take any AI-powered data responses (even the workout metrics it spits back) with a grain of salt. They’re not always accurate, as I’ve come to find, and definitely not a substitute for verified, real-world data.

Great-looking glasses. The tech is a bonus

Beneath the futuristic voice assistant and high-tech flex, these are still real Oakley sunglasses with polarized lenses, a rugged build and performance fit included. Even if the AI fried itself tomorrow, they’d still hold up as head-turning sport shades that have earned me more than a few compliments out in the wild.

I tested the 24K lenses with the black frame, which mostly look like a golden-hour gold but pick up reflections of whatever color I’m wearing, making them a nice neutral match for almost any outfit. They’re also available in reddish, blue and black finishes.

In terms of fit, they’re a lot lighter than what I expected considering the extra features. But the subsequent red mark left on the bridge of my nose would signal they aren’t quite as light as traditional shades (they weigh 66 grams). I ended up swapping out the nose piece (it comes with three) to make them more comfortable for longer wear, but I still had the evidence on my nose the way a swimmer has goggle rings after a pool sesh. The earpieces also felt a bit stiff and narrow for my head, but I like that they stayed put even on bumpy trail runs.

Visibility in full sun was excellent, but (like most other sun glasses) wasn’t optimal on a cloudy day when I was darting in and out of tree canopies. They did hold up to light rain sprinkles, and surprisingly, none of the footage from that day showed any water spots on the lens. I probably wouldn’t wear them instead of ski goggles during a full-on snowstorm, but they are rated to withstand water, sweat and dust.

The glasses have a few physical controls: a power button on the right temple, a small swipe-sensitive touchpad on the right arm and a customizable action button on the left. Without being able to see them, finding and remembering which side does what takes a bit of practice. I did most of my controlling via voice commands anyway, so the buttons were just a safety net.

Unlike Meta’s new Orion AR (augmented reality) glasses, these don’t have a floating screen in your line of sight. The Garmin overlays you see in the videos and images from the glasses reflect your real-time stats from that moment, but they’ve been added after the fact in the Meta AI app and meant for sharing (not live viewing). Strava users can do the same, adding performance stats to workout footage in the app to share with their community.
The only visual signal you’ll see inside the glasses is a small white LED light on the upper right-hand side of the lens. It indicates when the glasses are powered on, when Meta AI has been activated or when features like video recording are in use. It’s subtle enough not to distract mid-run, but helpful for confirming you’re actually recording — or not accidentally recording. There’s also a white LED light on the outside of the glasses, just below the camera lens, to let others know when you’re capturing video.

The sleek black carrying case doubles as a charging station, which is a nice touch. It plugs into a USB-C cable, but also holds a charge for a quick power up on the go. The color of the light on the front of the case indicates whether you’re fully charged (green), in pairing mode (blue) or running low on battery (red).

Setting up the maze of apps

Although the design is striking, setting up the Oakley Meta Vanguard wasn’t exactly plug-and-play. I tested it with a Pixel 9 Pro phone and a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro smartwatch. The new Oakley’s aren’t compatible with the Apple Watch, but you can use them with an iPhone and Garmin setup. First, you have to download the Meta AI app to your phone, make sure your software is up to date, then pair the app with the sunglasses. If you’re also connecting a Garmin watch, prepare for even more steps. You’ll need to install the Meta AI app on your watch via Garmin’s Connect IQ store and ensure everything is updated across all platforms.

That’s three layers of pairing and three potential points of failure. And yes, I absolutely got it wrong on the first try. My maiden voyage (a scenic bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge) was a total dud because I forgot to bring my phone, which meant no AI assistant, no metrics and no media.

Even after I finally got the glasses up and running, it took two more workouts before I finally managed to pair the Garmin watch successfully to get real-time metrics in my ear. I had to run two separate updates (one for the Meta app on Garmin IQ, and another for the watch software itself) before things started talking to each other. By launch, some of this may be streamlined, but be warned: If something breaks, you’ll need to play tech detective to figure out whether the issue lies in the Garmin IQ app, the Meta AI app or the watch itself.

The number of privacy disclosures also put me on edge, and handing over my health data required another layer of trust that I wasn’t sure I was willing to give up, let alone to Meta. It’s basically pay-to-play, with your personal metrics as currency.

Yes, I appreciated that the disclosures were at least transparent and, in theory, you can manage your data in the settings, but having to repeatedly grant permissions for things like AI training and Spotify preferences served as a stark reminder that these aren’t just sunglasses. They’re data-hungry smart devices that will know everything about you, even what you see.

Communication: Speakers and mic quality

The sound experience with the Oakleys is definitely different from wearing headphones, but comparing these to high-end over-ears would be unfair, to say the least. They’re not meant to be noise-canceling, and that’s a good thing considering the use case.

The open-ear speakers are built into the temples of the glasses, creating a natural sound profile that feels immersive without isolating you from the world. These are made for high-impact, high-speed activities, so it’s actually a benefit to retain environmental awareness while still hearing your music, stats or calls. I was impressed by how clear the audio was in most conditions.

Sound even adjusts to your surroundings, and in normal settings — trail runs, solo hikes, even light city traffic — they performed great. The one place they fell short was biking over the Golden Gate Bridge on a windy day. Between the hum of cars whizzing by and the gusts off wind hitting in opposite direction, the speakers couldn’t compete, even at full volume.

It’s worth noting that unlike earbuds, the sound doesn’t stay sealed inside your ears. At full blast, people nearby will hear it. That might seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget when you’re used to private listening. Especially during calls, it’s something to be mindful of so you don’t end up with the accidental eavesdropper.

The mic quality, though, really surprised me. It’s five built-in mics means callers could hear me clearly, and the glasses honed in on my voice (and panting) on videos with minimal background noise. One test even managed to capture my toddler’s voice from a baby carrier strapped to my back.

Voice command responsiveness was solid as well. I rarely had to repeat myself. And when I did, it wasn’t a mic issue — it was Meta AI not understanding the request.

Garmin integration is promising

One of the biggest upgrades here is the ability to access live fitness data via your Garmin watch without ever glancing down at your wrist. While my muscle memory still had me glancing at my watch more often than not, it was surprisingly useful to hear someone call out my pace or heart rate zone when I asked. In situations where looking down isn’t safe or even possible given the amount of gear on your arms (mountain biking, downhill skiing, etc.), this hands-free feedback could be a game-changer.

You can call up stats mid-run or after your workout just by asking Meta AI. I tested it with questions like, «What’s my longest run?» or «What’s my average pace to beat?» and it delivered. The glasses even went a step further by offering training suggestions like encouraging me to work on increasing my pace while staying mindful of not overexerting in high heart rate zones. It’s not quite the full Garmin Connect experience in your ear (it stopped short of setting up heart rate zone alerts), but it does bring some of the most helpful insights front and center without having to dig for them on your watch, which often can’t display more than four stats on one screen.

Documenting your adventures hands-free

As someone who’s tested early GoPros and 360-degree cameras, capturing footage from your head isn’t exactly new to me. But doing it hands-free from a pair of sunglasses — no awkward helmet or bike mounts in sight — completely elevated the experience.

The glasses have a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera with a 122-degree field of view and 3K UHD video capture. The lens gives you that signature fisheye GoPro-like look with an ultra-wide frame that works for both vertical and horizontal formats, whether you’re posting to Instagram or your Strava highlights reel.

Image stabilization was surprisingly solid. During a rocky trail run in my neighborhood regional park (they don’t call it Rockville for nothing), the footage came out impressively smooth. Same for my bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. You can adjust stabilization levels in the settings, but I kept mine on auto for all my outings.

You can shoot time-lapse and slow-motion clips with just a command, and there’s also an AutoCapture feature that kicks in automatically when you start a workout on your Garmin watch. It’s designed to record what it thinks are the «highlights» of your session, but that’s a bit of a black box. I’m not sure what the algorithm is using (heart rate spikes? speed bursts?), but it definitely missed the best views on my trail run. On the upside, it also skipped the less flattering moments, like stopping to pick up after my dog. You can also override AutoCapture (which I did) at any point. Still, be warned: There’s a small delay between the command and when the camera actually starts recording. One time I spotted a coyote on my trail, but by the time capture kicked in, it was long gone.

Media quality overall was solid for a wearable. You can adjust camera settings in the app, and while it won’t replace your DSLR or high-end phone camera, it’s more than good enough for capturing action moments without stopping to fumble with gear. It also has 32GB of onboard storage for phone-free captures, although it will need the phone’s processing power for any Meta AI requests.

Saving and sharing media, however, could be smoother. Your content first has to process from the sunglasses into the Meta AI app. Standard video and photo files will eventually sync to your phone’s gallery, but AutoCapture clips need to be manually saved, and only if the app is open during the transfer.

There is an option to share directly to Instagram if you connect your account, but I personally prefer to review what I’ve captured before broadcasting it live, thank you very much.

Battery life that holds up to the trails

You can ask Meta AI for a quick battery check, which is helpful when you’re out in the wild (in fact, without a display, it’s the only way to check on the go). Meta claims the glasses last up to nine hours with typical use, and up to six hours of continuous music playback. I didn’t wear them for nine consecutive hours (that’s next level commitment), but after a two-hour trail run with constant recording and AutoCapture enabled, I came home with about 75% battery left over. Charging speed is also impressive; you can get up to 50% in just 20 minutes on the charger.

Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses: Bottom line

The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses are novel and exciting, but they’re still niche. Most people will still find it easier to glance down at their smartwatch or pull out their phone for the same functionality.

Where they truly shine is in high-speed situations where checking your wrist mid-action isn’t an option: think downhill skiing, cycling, dirt biking or even trail running. They could also be great on race day (marathon, triathlon) when time is of the essence. In those moments, having real-time voice feedback and the ability to capture first-person POV video completely hands-free is a game-changer.

That said, the experience still lacks the user-friendly polish that Apple and Fitbit have mastered to win over mainstream users. This Meta-Garmin partnership feels ambitious and promising, but it also reinforces how niche the product remains. Right now it seems mostly geared towards serious athletes and tech enthusiasts who value cutting-edge innovation over seamless usability.

Still, the Vanguard gives us a clear glimpse into the future of wearable tech as AI continues to weave a tighter web between devices, and we start to see a synchronized ecosystem of connected gear that operates seamlessly within our daily lives.