Ever since AI reached its more advanced state, it’s been treated as a selling point in many products. Every ad you see these days advertises a brand’s new AI assistant, or new innovative AI technology. Including Ray-Ban.
On Sept. 17, the second generation of Ray-Ban Meta glasses became available to the general public – or whoever was willing to pay $379 for them. Compared to the first generation, these glasses have higher video resolution, longer battery life, improved audio, and a plethora of other features.
But how do these glasses compare to simply a phone and a pair of glasses?
The Meta Raybans need a phone near them to function, which is fine to some, but can be a bit of an inconvenience for others, especially if they don’t want to carry their phone around. Anyone can put on the glasses and use them with the voice commands, but the phone is needed nearby to do anything except take photos and videos.
These glasses, unlike other “AI” products, undoubtedly use AI in them. All you have to do is say “Hey Meta,” and ask it whatever question you might want. You can pick through voices of Awkwafina, John Cena, Keegan-Micheal Key, and Kristen Bell, along with a few default voices that are not of celebrities. All these voices use AI to create them.
You can ask the personal assistant on your phone almost all of the same questions that you would ask the Meta Glasses. But the glasses can see what you’re looking at while you have them on, and can (sometimes) correctly identify what it is you are looking at- though it is not entirely accurate.
This feature is a little confusing, as it is only really useful for a few things. You can ask the glasses questions about the thing you are looking at, but something they press is for you to ask is “Hey Meta, what am I looking at?” This command only identifies what it is that the glasses can see. It could potentially be used for identifying plants or animals, but your phone can do that just as easily by taking a photo on your phone- though only some phones have this feature.
The glasses also let you listen to music. You can use voice commands to tell it to play certain songs, pause, or change the volume. You can also tap the side of the glasses to play or pause your music, as well as turning the volume up or down by sliding your finger in the according direction. This can be done with your phone and a pair of headphones or earbuds, and if it’s the voice controls you want, your phone’s virtual assistant.
The Meta AI inserted into the glasses is one you can download on your phone. It even uses the same app required to use the Ray-Bans, so the AI is not exclusive to them. Your phone has more options than the glasses, if it’s the AI model that is the selling point for you.
It’s the camera in the glasses that is the best part. Compared to the Meta Ray-Bans’ first generation, the second generation has even higher camera quality. By clicking a button on top of the arms of the glasses, you can take a photo or video. A light turns on while you take it, helping to alert the people around you that you’re taking one.
These photos can turn out pretty well. The way of taking photos/videos like this makes it easier to capture sudden moments- much faster than getting out your phone, positioning it, going to the camera app, and taking a video. All you have to do is say “Hey Meta, take a video.”
Though the glasses are cool in theory, a lot of the features are useless since a phone is required. The glasses know your location, and will sometimes even mention it in their replies to your questions (even if it wasn’t warranted), but they cannot tell you when a store opens or closes without very specific instructions – likely an address is needed.
There’s no editing what you’ve asked once you’ve asked it. If you didn’t quite get the desired answer, you’ll have to ask it all over again with slightly different wording. If you used your phone to look something up, you could easily go in to change one or two words. But with the Meta Glasses, you have to wait for them to finish talking, and then say the whole phrase again.
These glasses, as previously mentioned, are extremely costly. Say you bought the glasses as sunglasses, and you want to switch the lenses or put a prescription in. To do that, you’d have to pay $35 or more.
The glasses do have a few cool features you might not find in other places, like live translation. The website claims you can “use live translation to have back-and-forth conversations in six languages and counting, without Wi-Fi.” This gives you a live, yet slightly delayed translation of your conversation. The correctness of these translations is debatable.
These glasses certainly have some cool features, and are quite an interesting tech product, but with all things considered, $379 is a bit of a steep price for most anyone.
