The Oakley Meta glasses are useful enough that the lens choice actually matters. If you wear them outside, in the car, or late in the day, the wrong tint can quickly become annoying.
I tested three Apex lens options for the Oakley Meta glasses: Icy Blue, Dark Blue Polarized Pro, and Transitional. The big question was simple: which one looks best, and which one makes the most sense for real everyday use?
Quick Answer
The Dark Blue lenses look darker from the outside than the Icy Blue lenses, but once I had one of each installed side by side, the actual tint through the glasses looked surprisingly similar. I expected the Dark Blue to feel darker while wearing them, but it did not make a huge difference indoors.
The Transitional lenses are the most practical option if you want something lighter when the sun goes down, but they are not the same as having a colored polarized lens. Indoors, they look almost clear with a subtle gray tint. I still need outdoor sunlight to judge how dark they get in real use.
What Comes In The Apex Lens Case
The Apex lenses arrived in the same style of case as the previous set. Inside the case were the lenses, an Apex sticker, a cloth bag for the glasses, and a cleaning cloth.
Nothing about the packaging changed the buying decision for me, but it is nice that the lenses are protected and that there is a cloth included. I still like putting a cloth down on the table before handling the glasses, just to avoid setting lenses directly on a hard surface.
Icy Blue Vs Dark Blue
The Icy Blue lenses are more of a light sky blue. The Dark Blue lenses are closer to an ocean blue when you look at them from the outside. On camera and under indoor lighting, the difference is not always dramatic, but side by side you can see it.
What surprised me was the view through the lenses. I installed one Dark Blue lens and left one Icy Blue lens in place so I could compare them directly in the Oakley Meta frame. Looking through one eye and then the other, the tint felt almost the same to me.
From the outside, the Dark Blue lens definitely looks darker. From the inside, while wearing the glasses, I expected it to block more light than it did. At least in this indoor test, the difference was more about appearance than a major change in how dark the world looked.
How Dark Are The Icy Blue Lenses
After using the Icy Blue lenses for a couple of days, including driving around, I found they were actually a little darker than my regular Ray-Ban sunglasses. My Ray-Bans also have polarized blue lenses, so that made the comparison more useful.
The Icy Blue lenses also seemed to add a slight blue tint when I compared them directly with the Ray-Bans. It was not something I noticed casually. I only picked up on it when I switched glasses back and forth and paid attention to the color difference.
That is worth knowing if you are sensitive to color tint. The Icy Blue lenses are not just a cosmetic blue from the outside. There is a subtle blue feel when wearing them too.
Changing The Lenses
The lens swap process gets easier once you have done it once or twice. The first couple of times can feel uncomfortable because you are applying pressure to an expensive pair of smart glasses, and it can feel like something might break.
The basic approach is to push the lens out from the opposite side, then install the new lens by seating the flatter side first and slowly working around the edges until it snaps in.
One of the original lenses took more force than any of the others I had removed so far. It eventually came out, but that moment did feel a little tense. After the lenses were swapped, I did not see any wear and tear on the glasses themselves.
- Push from the opposite side to remove the lens.
- Seat the flatter side of the replacement lens first.
- Work around the edge slowly until the lens snaps into place.
- Expect the first few swaps to feel uneasy.
- After a couple tries, the process feels much more manageable.
Why Transitional Lenses Are Interesting
The reason I wanted to try Transitional lenses is simple: darker sunglass lenses are not always ideal as the day changes. When it starts getting dark outside, wearing the Icy Blue lenses can make driving or walking around less comfortable.
The Transitional lenses are very light indoors. I would not call them perfectly white or completely clear, because they still seem to have a subtle gray tint, but they are much closer to clear than the blue lenses.
When I put one Transitional lens in next to one blue lens, the blue side was obviously darker. Colors through the Transitional lens looked more natural indoors, which is what you would expect from a mostly clear lens.
The Car Limitation
One caveat with Transitional lenses is important: most transition lenses do not darken well inside cars because the windshield blocks much of the UV light that activates them.
That matters a lot for Oakley Meta glasses because driving is one of the places where smart glasses can be useful, but also where lens tint matters. In a perfect world, I would want a colored polarized lens that also transitions quickly and works well through car glass.
I have heard there are some transition-style lenses that work better through glass, but I have not confirmed that with this set yet. For now, I would not buy these assuming they will become full sunglasses inside the car unless you have verified that behavior for your setup.
Which Lens Looks Best
For appearance, the Dark Blue lenses are the strongest option if you want a deeper blue look on the Oakley Meta frame. They look richer from the outside than the Icy Blue lenses.
The Icy Blue lenses still have a clean look, and they are darker in real use than I originally expected. If you like the lighter blue style, they are not just for looks. They work as real sunglass lenses too.
The Transitional lenses are the least dramatic visually indoors because they look mostly clear. Their advantage is flexibility, especially if you wear your Oakley Meta glasses across different lighting conditions and do not want to be stuck with a dark tint late in the day.
Key Takeaways
- Dark Blue lenses look darker than Icy Blue from the outside, but the tint felt very similar when looking through them indoors.
- Icy Blue lenses felt slightly darker than my regular polarized blue Ray-Ban sunglasses in a side-by-side comparison.
- The Transitional lenses look almost clear indoors with a subtle gray tint.
- Lens swapping feels uneasy at first, but it gets much easier after one or two tries.
- I did not see visible wear and tear on the Oakley Meta glasses after swapping the lenses.
- Do not assume Transitional lenses will darken well inside a car, because many transition lenses do not work strongly through windshields.
Watch the Video
The video above for the full lens swap, close-up comparison, and side-by-side look at the Icy Blue, Dark Blue, and Transitional lenses on the Oakley Meta glasses.
