Ray-ban Meta smart glasses make AI convos even more convenient | review

17.10.2023 - 07:35 / venturebeat.com / Ai

When Meta demoed its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, it touted the ability to livestream, record video, and play music. Then, at its recent Meta Connect event, it unveiled one more thing. You can speak to it a conversational tone and the AI will fetch you answers to your questions.

Now that’s pretty nifty. In some ways, this will make us even lazier. Now we won’t even have to reach for our phones to do a search, or sit in front of a computer to use a chat AI. The glasses hit the market for $300 and up starting today.

Of course, there are other ways you can do some of the same things that these smart glasses can do. If you had Air Pods on, you could ask Siri a question on your iPhone to get an answer. You could do the same with your smart watch.

But these smart glasses are better than the previous generation of glasses, and they make me think they might be a contender for a next-generation device that is better than what we’re all carrying around now. If Moore’s Law progresses and this tech keeps getting better, it’s going to be pretty cool.

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But is it worth it now at $300 minimum? That’s a tough one. After all, it is still a little bulky, as the electronics in the side frames make it bigger and heavier than normal glasses. I wore it and it wasn’t that heavy on my nose. It’s certainly much better than AR glasses that I’ve worn with wires attached to them.

But while these glasses are smart, they shouldn’t be mistaken for augmented reality glasses, as they have limited functionality. The lenses are ordinary, and all you can do with them is record video, take snapshots, answer phone calls and play music. You can also livestream with them.

Said like that, it seems that I’m really pissing all over these glasses because they can’t work electronics miracles yet. But they are really quite amazing at what they do.

In an update next year, the glasses will have the voice chat built into them. Tapping Meta AI, the AI can answer your questions, a lot like ChatGPT can, when you ask questions. But while it can recite facts to you, it can’t do the kind of things that science fiction promises us.

For instance, you can’t use the glasses to look at someone and see their name pop up on the lenses. As noted, this are just lenses. They’re not displays. On the privacy front, this is a good thing. And Meta said it wouldn’t create such an app as I described due to its privacy concerns.

Of course, while you wear the glasses, you can film other people. You tap the right-side frame top button once and you can take a picture. If you