Meta is trying to make smart glasses happen. This time, it might be successful.
Meta is not the first company to make smart glasses. Remember the Google Glass era? Or the frenzy over Snapchat’s Spectacles launch?
But it is probably the first company to make smart glasses that people actually want to wear. That is due in large part to its tie-in with Ray-Ban and Oakley; aside from the small camera lens, the glasses essentially look like normal eyewear.
But they come with integrated cameras for recording moments, Meta’s AI to carry out voice commands and speakers that will work equally well for music, podcasts or phone calls. The audio quality on calls was also surprisingly good.
But before you get to any of that, you need to set up the glasses and customise them for your preferences. Connecting the glasses to the Meta AI app only takes a few minutes, but you can spend a decent amount of time tweaking settings. For example, the AI voice that will speak to you can be a bland AI-generated tone. Or you can go for a famous person – AI-generated Kristin Bell, Keegan-Michael Key, John Cena or Awkwafina for US English, Judi Dench for UK English – to guide you through the day. I opted for Judi.
