A software engineer has shared a video demonstrating their brand-new gamified running app for the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. Highlights of the app, made by Stijn Spanhove, include a ghost racer to help you to keep pace with your best prior runs, coin pick-ups, sprint zone bonuses, and a mini leaderboard. This is only possible now because Meta recently added display capabilities for devs in the Meta Wearables Device Access Toolkit and the Web Apps pathway.

The embedded video shows several compelling features of the unnamed gamified running app. As you run, you can see the route with you and your ghost racer’s position superimposed on it. There are also status details such as run distance, completed distance, vs ghost distance, coins collected, and even a score in the HUD. We also note that the wearable feeds the display with pace and distance info, with the compass used to keep the map oriented in the forward direction.

Spanhove makes developing this app for the Ray-Ban Display sound like a walk in the park. “I built a web app for the glasses, loaded a previous GPX from Strava, and dropped game mechanics on top,” he summarized. GPX is a standard GPS file format that contains a route’s data and Strava allows users to export any past run as a GPX file. So, Spanhove just took a previous run and exported it for this gamified web app project.

The software engineer also told folks not to worry about having to run with their chunky flagship phone in their pocket. With this web app, processing is light enough to run smoothly directly on the device, assured Spanhove. “Been wearing a lot of AR glasses, these feel ok. Honestly, comfortable to run in,” he surmised.

Meta launched its Ray-Ban Display glasses last year, with early adopters being able to get hold of these wearables starting in October. As you may infer from the name, these were built on Meta’s earlier glasses designs by integrating a micro display in the right lens. The new waveguide display meant wearers would be able to enjoy new apps with AR overlays. So, in effect, Meta’s Ray-Bans were upgraded to include a lightweight AR HUD.

On May 15, Meta opened up developer access to the display on the Meta Ray-Ban Display⁠ glasses with two build paths: mobile apps and web apps. This unlock means devs and enthusiasts can unleash their imaginations. Quickly, there were examples of the new AR glasses being used for quirky fun like boxing games, Tetris, Breakout, and even a utility to interact with your car. Our headlining gamified running example may be the most compelling new use for the glasses yet, though.

We reviewed the original Meta Ray-Bans in Feb 2025.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.