I Found a Secret Upgrade Inside These Meta Glasses…
The first-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses are still perfectly usable, but there’s one area where the newer model leaves them behind: battery life.
Buying a completely new pair would be the obvious solution. Instead, I wanted to find out if there was a way to upgrade the glasses I already had.
It turns out there is, but reaching it could easily destroy them.
Opening the Glasses
The battery is hidden inside the arm of the glasses, and getting to it is incredibly difficult.
Unlike a phone, there’s no removable back panel or set of screws holding everything together. The frame is thin, tightly assembled, and packed with delicate electronics. Ray-Ban even states that the embedded battery isn’t designed to be replaced.
That means one cracked frame, torn connection, or punctured battery could end the project immediately. After carefully opening the side, I finally reached the original battery.
The Tiny Battery Inside
The first-generation glasses use a small 154mAh battery. There isn’t much room inside the arm, so replacing it with something larger isn’t as simple as finding another battery with more capacity.
It also has to fit inside the same limited space without interfering with the rest of the hardware.
That’s where the newer glasses come in.
The Secret Gen 2 Upgrade
The battery from the Gen 2 Ray-Ban Meta glasses has a larger 219mAh capacity, and surprisingly, it can fit inside the older Gen 1 frame.
By removing the original 154mAh battery and swapping in the newer one, the first-generation glasses can gain extra battery capacity without replacing the entire pair.
Affiliate disclosure: Phone Repair Guru may earn a commission if you buy through our product links. You can find this battery in our As Seen on Shorts collection. Check the seller’s current specifications and exact model compatibility before ordering.
Ray-Ban rates the Gen 1 glasses for up to four hours of moderate use, while the Gen 2 can reach up to eight hours. The battery swap alone may not give the older glasses the full Gen 2 runtime, but the additional capacity should still keep them running longer between charges.
Final Thoughts
There really is a hidden battery upgrade for the original Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The problem isn’t finding the right battery. It’s opening the frame without destroying everything around it.
It’s an impressive upgrade if it works, but with glasses this difficult to disassemble, better battery life comes with a serious chance of ending up with no battery life at all.
See you in the next article!
