More than a decade ago, smart glasses made a disappointing debut. Their biggest impact was adding glasshole to our collective vocabulary. This time around the tech turned up disguised as a pair of sunnies. The best sport pair on the market will film your ride, read out your splits and play music on a trail run. It's not fully waterproof, though, so you won't be seeing them in the lineup.
More than seven million pairs were bought in 2025. The product category is probably here to stay. So we're putting a list out into the universe of future features that would get us interested.
1. SURVIVE THE WIPEOUT
Most of this list depends on two things: working underwater and staying on your face. A closeout set, a lip to the head and going over the falls are table stakes. Solve those two and the rest is a cakewalk.
2. POV RECORDING
First-person surf footage is currently shot with a camera held in the teeth. Board mounts give you the view from the nose. Neither shows the wave the way you see it, with the lip feathering above you and the wall forming ahead. Heads never stop moving, so stabilisation and framing are part of the package.
3. KEEP THE LOGBOOK
A heads-up display showing session stats in real time: wave count, performance metrics, the works. A notification when the traffic's gone to hell and it’s time to catch one in to make the morning meeting. While waiting for the next set, watching a replay of my last wave by networking into another headset in the lineup would be cool. Ugh. Is that really what my turns look like?
4. READ THE WATER FOR ME
To a beginner, a lineup is a three dimensional maths problem in a foreign language. An overlay marking the peak, a line from where they are to where they should be, cues for when to paddle, and a warning when they're about to drop in on someone makes things much easier. That last one might matter most, because nothing flattens the learning curve like getting sent in for burning a local.
5. DRAW THE RIP
The calm-looking gap between the banks gets shown for what it really is. For a beginner, that's somewhere to stay out of. For everyone else, it's the express lane out the back. Pair it with set recognition and you could time the paddle out so perfectly you have a burning desire to paddle straight into the first wave that comes your way instead of burning shoulders and lungs begging you to wait a bit.
6. APPRAISE THE RAYS
A UV tracker showing exactly how much pain you're in for. Ideally this encourages more protection and smarter choices, but we all know that's unlikely. We'll add dynamic glare adjustment so the lens adjusts to protect your eyes. Your skin will still burn but your eyes won’t, and your tan lines will be the envy of every seasoned snowboarder.
7. MEASURE THE CATCH
Know whether it's legal size and in season before it's off the hook. Take a measurement, make a judgement and record the release, so you have proof you did the right thing. It keeps your hands free, and your phone stops smelling like bait all the time.
8. BIRD-CALLER ID
Shazam, but for the wild. Record the sounds around you, log the data and identify the animal making them. Birds, bugs and other beasts. Then translate what they're saying. Call it the Dolittle feature.
9. USE MY EYES
Let someone else see what I’m seeing. Gone are the days of telling everyone how good it was. Let them see for themselves in real time. This will probably end more friendships than anything else. It's also great for remote support, coaching and help on the spot, like when you cannot figure out the borrowed tent your mate assured you was super simple to set up.
10. AUTO ANONYMISER
Half the lineup called in sick this morning, and dobbers never get waves. Glasses that blur everyone else by default keep the aggression down and the wave count up.
11. THE PERFECT PITCH
You've arrived at your site and it's time to set up. Draw up a floor plan showing where everything should go, along with step by step setup instructions for the more complicated kit. Feng Shui but for a campsite.
AVAILABLE NOW
Some of these feature requests are already available, kinda. Those of you with the Apple Vision Pro headset can pass the days waiting for a set you can wear in the water, by getting a first person perspective of Teahupo'o from the comfort of your couch, thanks to Red Bull.
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Get Wet. FORM Smart Swim 2 goggles put swim data in the lens but they're built for laps and open-water swims, not closeouts.
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POV recording. GoPro's Bite Mount is the standard. On land, the Oakley Meta Vanguard films from the brow and overlays Garmin stats.
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Log the session. Rip Curl's Search GPS 3 counts waves, paddles and drift. Pair it with Surfline Sessions and your rides get clipped from Surfline's cams. The replay in the lineup is still a wish. Probably a blessing, really.
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Read the water. Surf forecasts and cams do the reading from the shore, and some wave pools already track waves and pop-ups. The best overlay is still a knowledgeable companion.
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Draw the rip. Surf Life Saving Australia's free Beachsafe app shows hazards, patrol hours and how to spot a rip. UNSW's RipEye, which spots rips from phone footage, is in development with SLSA.
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Appraise the rays. Cancer Council's free SunSmart Global UV app gives live UV levels and alerts for when you need protection. Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 comes with Transitions lenses.
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Measure the catch. NSW's free FishSmart app carries species, bag and size limits, and other states have their own. De-odorising your phone is, alas, still an issue.
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Name that Song. Merlin's Sound ID names birds by their call and is adding Australian species. The Australian Museum's FrogID records a frog's call and their team identifies the species.
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Use my eyes. Ray-Ban Meta glasses can livestream to Instagram and Facebook. For blind and low-vision wearers, Be My Eyes connects a volunteer who sees through the glasses' camera.
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Anti snitch software. YouTube Studio's editor can detect and blur faces after the fact, and you choose which ones.
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Is it good to go? The BOM Weather app will tell you where the wind's coming from. Making the call is still in your hands.
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No charging case required
Until the glasses catch up: polarised lenses to see into the water, a cord to keep them on your face, and a measure to settle the legal-size question before it's off the hook.
