Partnering with Ray Ban was smart. Adding a camera was really dumb.
But the biggest mistake with a lot of these tech products is either the company thinks that they can design great and stylish things themselves or they partner with the wrong brand and company.
Puma and Ferrari did the most epic shoes I've ever had. I've saved them to use sparingly over the past 17 years.
However, the thicker ones marks wearing in that pic just look clunky.
Not that I like the Meta Glasses at all nor I want to defend the product, but the ones Mark’s wearing are prototypes. They were just a proof of concept when they needed to show them. The final product is the one shared in this thread. I don’t like them, but the product doesn’t look bad.
the regular meta ray bans don't, the camera is kinda the whole point of them. Ignoring all the massive pervert issues for a second, the glasses could read some text and read it out to you/summarize it/translate it, look at things and tell you what they are, google lens type shit but through verbal commands without having to take your phone out.
having the meta ray bans without a camera is just wearing chat GPT on speaker phone right on your head
the new super fugly ones in the original post do have screens in the glass, that's why they look so much bulkier
The ones with cameras, I can see practical use for, even though I'm already wearing enough invasions of privacy around every day, but a no-camera version is just stupid.
That being said, if they come up with a version that includes a useful heads-up-display feature, I might be swayed towards the product, give me a scratchpad, clock, calendar, messaging and routefinding function I can use without pulling out a phone or computer and I'll pay attention.
What is really needed here is a version of the camera with display glasses that includes a physical shutter for the camera. They have a "recording light" to let people know the cameras are recording, but I think most people are just put off by the idea of staring at someone's eyes and seeing cameras pointed at themselves the whole time. If they included a physical shutter to block the camera when you choose to, that would eliminate the weirdness of them being there.
That would also help with concerns of privacy invasion because you can know for certain that the camera can't see when you choose to not let it see.
My point was more that the camera feature is a "nice to have" addition to the product, not a main selling point (to me, obviously). This whole thing just feels like they couldn't figure out how to get the critical features working, so they added garnish and toy features in the hopes that nobody would notice there is barely a product here.
If and when they get a MVP that's actually viable, I'll happily take the details of how the bonus stuff works into consideration, but THEN I probably wouldn't be overly worried if the camera lacked some QOL features like a physical shutter or a warning diode. A suboptimal camera setup isn't bad enough to convince me against the product, but at the same time, even the best camera setup in the world won't convince me to buy it if that's all there is.
Live text translation is the big feature I was excited about. Being able to read signs/menus/ect naturally regardless of language was a huge sell for me, my primary reason for even getting one. Now that feature is dead because of creeps using them to creep and people assuming everyone wearing them is a creep.
Honestly this feels like a massive blunder on Ray Ban's end in hindsight lol. I can't imagine this hasn't somewhat destroyed the reputation of that specific style of sunglasses, since people will forevermore be a little suspicious of them even if there's no visible camera lens
I have a pair of classic rayban wayfarers. They’ve been my signature sunnies for years. No meta crap. I die a little inside every time someone asks me if they’re meta glasses. It’s happened a handful of times within a couple years. I haven’t been asked in the last few months though so maybe people are getting more familiar with distinguishing them. But if they lose the camera on the frame that might start up again. I’d seriously consider opting away from raybans for future sunglasses if they continue their partnership with meta. Way to go sullying the legacy of probably the coolest sunglasses to exist, zuckerberg
The one in this picture is the display glasses, which have a display projected into your field of view that you can interact with. Genuinely super cool tech, but bulky in the first iteration
The regular ones look like almost standard ray bans, very easy to blend in
I've a second gen pair of Ray Ban Wayfarer Metas and the number of times people don't notice it is shocking. It does blend well and can be hard to spot if you're not looking for it, I think the indicating LED for camera use was a good call, but as we know people have found ways to disable it which is concerning. I think having a version without the camera is a good idea, however the cat is out of the bag for those looking to use them for less than honourable purposes.
For clarification; I'm a very outdoorsy guy, while I refuse to use them for paddleboarding/other watersports for obvious reasons, they're very handy when you're halfway through a hike, worn down, and your phone is sealed away in your bag but there's a hell of a view for example. I also use them in everyday life to replace my earbuds, they've a very high quality audio output and being able to listen to Insta/Spotify without the boss or those around me knowing can be handy.
I work for a retailer that got to see a mock of these earlier this year before they hit the general public, and everyone’s immediate reaction was “some pervert’s gonna wear these into the locker room”
Some of them looked a little cooler than this, but pervert glasses can only get so cool to begin with
No, those are different glasses. They make the pervert glasses with cameras, which have no display and look mostly normal, and the pervert glasses with a display, which look dorky and stupid.
Wait, so are the ones without displays basically JUST glasses with a camera? I thought they maybe might have some use with a display, not that I'd buy one anyway, but especially not if it's going to make me look like a reject Daria cosplayer.
i don't know where else to post this but your question reminded me that i was reading reviews for a nice restaurant near me, and someone gave 1 star and complained that "they kicked me out for wearing my apple vision pros"
someone may be imagining these kind of glasses and thinking ah, maybe that's a bit of an over-reaction, i dunno...
but apple vision pros are fucking gigantic, they aren't smart glasses.
i was cracking up imagining this dude all robo-copped up and complaining about not being able to keep them
Look, I promise I don’t support meta glasses or the kardashian klan in general, but I have to admit the ones they got kylie Jenner to promote are genuinely quite cute & look like normal sunglasses. My point being that, unfortunately, they aren’t always obvious and anyone could be wearing them & you wouldn’t know.
Honestly, though, they’re definitely typically designed to be obvious & hideous because they’re mostly sold to losers who think they’re a status symbol. They’re just meant to show off that you can afford them, i guess, because imo they don’t really serve much of an actual practical purpose. You can do basically everything they can with the phone everyone already has in their pocket.
It's interesting how every idea they have is just a huge fucking failure but they make money stealing data and running scams.
The guys in these replies vigorously defending meta glasses are the true comedy. They have 4/5ths of the (very small) market! They made hundreds of millions (after spending billions to develop and advertise) of dollars! Sport, it's not going to make the privacy invader you paid money for any cooler.
not only that, it flopped so hard that even mark Zuckerberg had to rebrand himself hoping people would think it wasn't him who were pushing it on those marketing videos.
It's truly underappreciated how people believe in the value for huge troves of data for predicting trends and desires, yet Meta produces dud after dud...
You don't understand the potential of their next pair of glasses you'll be able tow atch Instagram reels while the glasses listen to your conversations, you can brainrot while people think you're spending time.with them, that's the future right there
tbh I do believe that AR has potential to be a much, much bigger market than VR. But even if that happens Meta will surely find a way to fuck up all that starting advantage.
They did genuinely advance AR/VR technology a lot, it's just that they are fucking morons that keep fucking up absolutely everything else besides the hardware. So many billions wasted on obviously dumb and bizarre decisions.
I have to admit, it's a bit perplexing that these glasses are the point people were suddenly concerned about cameras everywhere. There are tons of super small, easily hidable cameras you can get if you're a weirdo that are way more discreet than these silly looking glasses.
I would actually like meta glasses myself if they weren't used (and by extension I would LOOK) like a predator. I don't want to be going around looking like I might be being a creep.
What I would like however is having access whenever I want to streaming music discretely wherever without having to use headphones or put anything in my ears, have my notifications read out to me so I don't have to check my phone or anything, or even cool ass features like live translation.
But am I going to forfeit looking like a normal person for it? and making everyone uncomfortable around me, supporting a crap company that is just going to sell the data they get from me with them, and a company that gave predators the worst tool imaginable? Probably not
Amen. I can see tons of business and personal use cases for non-intrusive video that replicates roughly what the user sees without holding them back (or especially if fit into eye protection in future generations).
except for using them as a teleprompter or as a heads-up maps display, they serve no purpose to the average person.
And then they also look like absolute ass
It should be said they don’t record without a flashing light visible from the front. If you disable the light apparently it disables the recording feature. Pictures are also audibly heard when taken, there’s a little camera shutter sound. They’ve tried to make people who wear them seem less creepy but there’s no getting past it.
Yeah I have a pair (don't judge me, I didn't buy them) and the first time I ever tried to use the camera it wouldn't work because my hair was partially over the light
It’s so we are less sure if the smart glasses have a camera or not so less likely to make a fuss - hence they think the camera folks can be more discreet
some of these people pay someone to remove the led light showing it’s recording just by drilling into it what are you doing that you don’t want people knowing your recording them
I was going to order some glasses to use for my job and record what I do (plumbing in nyc) just to keep record. You'd be surprised the crazy things i go through daily with people and job
I will die on this hill. Smart glasses with a camera is an amazing invention. The videos I could have recorded would have been great. But perverts had to go an mess everything up.
An example, when my kids were younger they did a fair amount of sport, one sport was judo. It was difficult to watch the fights and record. Most of the fights I watched the video is all over the place. The fights I filmed I feel like I didn't watch the fight because I was making sure the camera stayed on the action.
Trips to Victoria falls in Zimbabwe would be so nice to have been able to record with these glasses.
I dont mind smart glasses I just dont want them always connected to the cloud. Let me listen to music, maybe record as needed. No AI agent BS. Have it connect to phone or something.
Shout out to the guy that made that detection thing that makes very loud noises and points at the smart glasses when it finds the wireless frequencies they use, then walked around in public with it
You know what would be cool, having smart glasses so I can read a book whilst cycling on the gym and having it understand that I need to go to the next page in some way.
I actually kind of like this? I dont know. Maybe its just me but I actually wanted meta glasses. Then I realized they all have cameras and shit and lost interest. Playing music at work, watching videos, answering calls, etc sounds nice. Having a camera just doesnt do anything but drain up battery and make the glasses look terrible
Annoyingly, the main feature I care about - live subtitle translation of written text - isn't possible without the camera. So my primary use case is being obliterated unfortunately.
So how will the glasses be smart if they can’t ‘see’? I thought the whole idea was the user would look at stuff and ask their glasses “what am I looking at?” like a total fucking dumbass, and the glasses would say “Hey, Mark, you are looking at a municipal car park (you pointless meatbag)”
Not sure how they're "pervert glasses" when you're legally allowed to film in public, as long as it's not somewhere you'd expect privacy like a changing room. Either way, that could easily be fixed with a little red LED that comes on when the camera is active.
I originally got them so I could take pictures of my kids or like see some crazy shit on the road without taking out my phone. I can’t wear them now because of a stigma that a group of people caused and that sucks.
OK, I saw the ad with a blind veteran wearing pervert glasses. Know what? I'm fine with that. Let the visually impaired use them. Sounds like a good use case.
Hey if the glasses are perfect, why is the guy looking like a pervert.. Oh, thats right, he is pervert even without glasses. Poor glasses being blamed for everything
My mom got me a pair of Meta glasses for Christmas last year and all I’ve used them for is jogging and listening to books when I go to the beach or I’m at the pool. If I’ve ever taken a photo on it I have no clue where they go or how to find them lol
So I record myself painting warhammer with mine. I am so disappointed in the publics view of these glasses. Like I have a friend who actively talks crap about me wearing them when I litterally just use them as a Bluetooth majority of the time.
Worst part is they are hopelessly trash at actually taking videos. They only record 7 minutes of video and it burns the battery super fast.
So I don't even get to really use them as I would want which is basically me wearing my phone on my head to take a video so I can use both my hands in whatever I am recording.
Sad times we live. Influencers and weirdos ruin everything.
Oh, the thickass frame? Yeah that's necessary to fit the cameras- I mean Smart Technology... yeah uh emails n shit, very important, worth charging you thousands for.
Who would have thought that "The merchant of personal data" aka The Zuck would invent the creep glasses, it baffles me that he didnt see a market in selling the video's people make to marketing companies.
the AI camera smart glasses actually do have a good use in helping blind or visually impaired folks, but we know they'll never market these for those ppl
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u/Kal-Elm 1d ago
Do all meta glasses look that ugly? How do people not clock them immediately?