Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are a turning point”.
The problem with mirror selfies is that there’s always phones in them Psy. This is 2023 and we’ve got smart glasses. A smart glasses didn’t disappear when Google Glass crashed and burned 10 years ago. We’Ve also seen a lot of other attempts from companies, big and small, but not a single one has ever made it to the mainstream in the way that smartw, watches, phones or tablets. Have I’ve tried a ton of different smart glasses and for each I’ve had a hard time Imagining the average person wanting a pair? That’S not the case for the rayb ban, meta, smart glasses.
I could very clearly picture who would want a pair of these, because I’ve had multiple people in my life. Tell me that they plan on buying one, and that has never happened. It makes me think that we’ve hit a turning point with consumer smart glasses. So, let’s get right into it, ha see it’s recording.
In many ways, these glasses are what the stories should have been. Instead of one mic, we now have five. The audio is also improved with less leakage better base and support for spatial audio. The battery also lasts longer and the charging case itself is slimmer, more stylish and now has an LED indicator light. I get about 3 to 4 hours of heavy usage and closer to a whole workday. If I use them more intermittently, I ran my battery all the way down to 15 % on my commute here, it’s been less than an hour and I’m all the way back up to 100 %. It’S also bit about a week, and I haven’t needed to charge this case once these are solid updates, but none of it is revolutionary.
But what I think meta has done here is nail the execution which in turn, addresses some of the key issues that have held smart glasses back the most important thing about rayan meta, smart glasses. Is they look good? I look good, that’s it more so than any other kind of Gadget. Smart glasses have to look stylish.
Humanity is vain. If eyes are the windows to the soul? Of course you want your glasses to be a fetching pair of curtains. Rayb band is great for that, because it’s an iconic fashion, brand and wfirs are about as close to a universally flattering frame as you can get. If you don’t look good in them, you’re not going to wear them. The same goes if they’re, too, conspicuous part of the reason Google Glass didn’t work was the futuristic design made you stick out in a bad way. These metag glasses are way more discreet.
I wore these on my commute to a wedding hold up up in the car on my walks on a run. Nobody looked at me twice. Meta sent me these as a pair of sunglasses, but you can also get them in clear and transition lenses, which is more useful unless you only plan on using these while you’re outside.
If you need a prescription, you can get them through rayan, but they’re limited to -6 to plus 4 Pres descriptions. If you have worse eyesight like me, you’re probably going to have to wear them with contacts or take them to your local optometrist. But, like I said, you have many options and while it’s pricey it’s about what you can expect to pay for a pair of nice Ray bands, unless you go to Korea, that’s my family’s hack.
We get all of our glasses in Korea, so much cheaper, even with the plane flight. Okay, um, I’m going to put these back up because I’m not going to wear these I’m indoors. I look like a choni, but anyway, another big problem with smart glasses has been timing. Meta is not Reinventing the wheel here, and I think a lot of that is that meta’s glasses are coming at a time when the technology is finally Advanced enough to deliver a good overall experience.
But don’t take my word for it. I’M going to throw it over to our resident camera and headphone expert Becca to talk about what it’s like to use these to create and consume content. Becca section what up good to see you bud um! So so, when I first got the Rayban metas smart glasses, which is a bad name but pretty decent product, I thought of them as a camera that happened to be mounted on glasses, but the more I use them the more I realize that they were actually a Pretty decent alternative to Bluetooth headphones that just so happened to have a camera. I’M Becca: let’s talk about it, hi be any depth of field to these bad boys, o tiny lens, tiny sensor, I’m going to say maybe not an open ear design for headphones is, is almost always going to have less Bas presence, and that is certainly true here, But in almost every other way these make great wireless speakers.
It’S been a while, but uh, let’s do a mic test. Of course we are starting with the goat, the wired Apple headphone. That now comes in USBC. I mean this is the gold standard of mics. It’S right by your mouth and I’m so excited to hear how mics that are mounted by your nose. Sound.
Let’S get right to it: okay, ray band meta, smart glasses; they have five mics in them and including, I think it’s two mics right here on the nose Bridge, which means it is really close to my mouth. Everyone. I’Ve talked to says I sound great, but do I sound as good as the second gen airpod Pros baby, which now come in USBC? Let’S go, I mean tons of people are still using these on calls, but I’ve also been impressed with uh with this mic. These are the nothing air twos, they are the earbuds I honestly use the most. They do still have Bluetooth dropouts, especially when I’m down in the city, but overall they’ve been great headphon. So how do they compare to the but wait these sound so good? This is incredible: I’m going to be wearing these on calls.
I just love it so much, except for the fact that my M1 MacBook Pro only recognizes these as headphones and uh doesn’t recognize mic so uh something to fix on the back end there anyway uh back back back to the rest of the video. I’M I’m impressed outside of the very usable mics. The tap controls are some of the most responsive I have used. I haven’t had a Mis touch or delay in the 5 days that I’ve been using them and sliding up or down for volume.
It’S always the answer. I also haven’t had any problems with Bluetooth connections or dropouts and the glasses pair seamlessly and quickly, with my iPhone 12 Pro as soon as I take them out of the case, all around I’m impressed so impressed that it has led me to be that person who’s Wearing sunglasses inside all right, so the camera, the very small lens and even smaller sensor, provides surprisingly usable footage. These are new signs. I used to just call this thing: the big loop besides solid color reproduction and most mostly crisp details and good light. I was the most surprised with the stabilization audio quality and high and low light balance when we walk our brain does a lot of work to stabilize our vision. So inherently a camera mounted to our head is not going to look nearly as smooth as what we see, but meta has done a decent job of creating footage that doesn’t look like a bobbing mess.
There’S, of course, some Bob and some Sway, and you can see the work the system is putting into stabilizing the image and the small details, but for the most part, and especially on a small screen such as as a phone, this footage is not nauseating. Welcome back another feature that sells the POV perspective is the glass’s ability to record using its five mics, which then can create spatial audio you’ll want to wear headphones for this, but pay attention to where people’s voices are coming from. As my family tries to decide which side of the aisle to sit on at a wedding, they do that anymore. I don’t know I not like we’re getting in trouble, there’s no chairs over there. Lastly, the camera transitions smoothly from light to dark situations when walking into a store, for example, footage seamlessly maintains proper exposure without notice. Much like our eyes do so for a camera that films from an eyes perspective. This is all green news. The problem is, it’s not quite your eyes perspective and I’ve had a lot of trouble framing for this lens. I never really knew where the center of the frame was, which led to my hand either being not in frame or not centered, and then my hat, which sometimes made its way into the top of the frame, was also never centered, which just kind of drives.
Driv me, nuts and a live view from the Native app, I think, would help a little bit with learning the framing, but for now opening Instagram and previewing from the live stream view is doing the trick. So on paper, these glasses read as a decent camera. In the form of sunglasses, but in practice the framing difficulties led me to just take my phone out and get the shot I wanted more often than not, and I found myself wearing them because they were a solid set of bluetooth speakers. Instead, in specific situations where you want both of your hands in the frame and you’re really going for that, POV angle think writing a b driving a boat. I mean this is exactly the camera I would choose, and the great mics are a cherry on top now meta. Your next challenge is going to be figuring out how to cover this lens when you don’t want to use it because being the person with a lens constantly facing out, is I don’t know kind of weird feeling, anyway, back to UV, I cosign everything Becca just said To that, I’m just going to add that through this process, I’ve learned that I tilt my head a lot because so many of my pH photos came out at Dutch angles or with my bangs, ruining the shot. I also really enjoyed capturing candid videos of my cats.
Normally, if they see my phone come out, they either hide refuse to look at the camera or they just get really weird about being filmed. Which brings me to my second point about timing for better or worse, we’re at a point in our culture where everybody is filming and documenting their lives all the time and that’s kind of normal good Google, Glass, pissed people off folks felt like they were a gross Invasion of privacy to the point where the devices got ripped off people’s faces and were banned from some public places fast forward 10 years, and I can’t even step outside without ending up as an extra in someone else’s digital memories. There are exceptions, but I’ll bet, thanks to smartphones, you’re, a lot more used to the idea of cameras being everywhere, but the thing about smart glasses is that they don’t come with the same cultural cues use as phones. Your image of smart glasses is probably shaped by Tony Stark James Bond or other spies and sci-fi Flex shout out to exie. I think he would rock these pretty well.
Meanwhile, if I hold up my phone like this or like this, you know what I’m doing. If I have these on and I’m doing this, you might just think I’m adjusting my glasses when really I’m taking a photo. The glasses have an LED capture light, which is meant to alert folks around you that you’re taking a photo or video this time around meta says it’s added a pulsing pattern to be more obvious, but the jury is out on how effective it is indoors. It can be pretty noticeable, but not always I pulled a bunch of co-workers and friends and it was a mixed bag Outdoors. Well, I literally have video of my spouse, saying they couldn’t see it. Whenever I filmed my commutes, however, no one ever did notice the audio cues when you take a photo or video other people might not hear them like. Let’S do this here. If you hear this now is because we’re in a quiet Studio, I’ve got mics around me on your commute. Maybe not there’s a lot of loud noise going around in the companion.
App meta has tips about etiquette and reminds you to respect people’s privacy. That’S nice, but barring a more obvious, LED glassholes are going to use these devices. However, they please and for the rest of us. It introduces awkward situations.
For example, I went to a wedding this past weekend. That’S an event where it makes natural sense to wear something. Like this, but at the same time, did my friend want me to record footage when it’s not obvious to other guests. What I’m doing I ended up asking permission, which was also kind of a funny thing to explain, and it was a great experience. I got to be present and fully enjoy the moment and still give my friends some extra footage of their special day which, by the way, she was very happy about because they were good quality.
But I wouldn’t have felt the need to ask permission if it was just my phone. Is it okay for you to wear these to a concert and film what’s going on there? What do you do if a person notices you’re wearing these glasses, while you’re in a public restroom, was I a creep for filming my commutes without disclosing that to my fellow commuters, are wearable cameras, an inherent invasion of privacy, or could they also be a safety measure? I had a really interesting conversation with a cooworker who have wanted these, because if they ever got attacked well, they could just grab footage as evidence, because, while this is the age of creators, it’s also the age of body cams and using phone footage when you feel Threatened so say tomorrow, everyone has a pair of these. Am I going going to be acting different when I see a lot of people wearing sunglasses, knowing that one of them may be smart in this way? The idea freaks me out, but, realistically speaking, I’m not sure.
I’M going to care, I mean that’s the nature of turning points right. They bring up all these questions that we don’t have answers for, and we just won’t have those answers until we have the same social, cultural cues for these as we do for phones do, I think everyone will be sporting a pair of these 2 months. I doubt it I’m pretty sure this is something that will mostly appeal to content creators, techies and people, just tired of strapping GoPros to their heads, but before these all of my cumulative experiences with smart glasses, they made me a hardcore skeptic. But now I know multiple people who have ordered a pair simply because the tech has improved to the point where they think it’ll help them either use their phone less or replace their headphones. I myself myself and tempted to swap out these lenses for a pair of prescription Transitions, and that is something I never would have considered before, but I mean they’re high quality, they look nice, the photos and videos are great and I mean privacy concerns aside. Have you considered how cute my cats are? I mean seriously look at them pety and Pablo. Those are my cat’s names secret agent, just like you’re, just a spy you’re, just a spy. That’S all it is .