Meta Ray-Ban Display offers groundbreaking tech at the cost of repairability

If the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are the future of wearable tech, that future’s going to be hard to fix. The teardown specialists at iFixit have taken apart Meta’s new $800 augmented reality specs and found cutting-edge optical engineering, but not much thought for repairability.

According to iFixit’s teardown, every component of the glasses is sealed tight, with the entire frame glued and no easy way to replace the most obvious wear-out part: the battery. The teardown revealed a 960mWh battery, but the process of reaching it required specialist tools and a dose of luck to avoid damaging the delicate ribbon cable underneath. iFixit did say that “battery repair isn’t totally impossible here, provided you can get your hands on a replacement battery (which Meta hasn’t yet made available).”

Inside, the hardware is as impressive as it is inaccessible. The Snapdragon AR1 chip, paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, handles the computing work, while a micro-projector in the right arm beams images through a specialized geometric waveguide embedded in the lens. That glass structure reflects light through a series of tiny mirrors to create a 600×600-pixel display that floats in the wearer’s view.

iFixit explains that this design avoids two of the most significant problems found in other AR glasses: the distracting “eye glow” that can shine toward onlookers and the rainbow-like artifacts that appear when overhead light hits the lens.

It’s an impressive bit of miniaturization, but the design leaves no room for repairability. The speakers are soldered in, the lenses are glued to the fragile waveguide assembly, and even the hinges took some figuring out to disassemble. iFixit points out that an IPX4 rating doesn’t justify the amount of glue used, calling it “overkill” for something you’d only want to wear in light rain anyway.

The teardown is an interesting glimpse into the good and the bad of AR tech. As impressive as the technology is, it seems that longevity isn’t yet part of the equation. Until this becomes a factor that manufacturers care about, you’ll be forced to upgrade every few years.