[HN Gopher] Meta announces Oakley smart glasses
___________________________________________________________________
Meta announces Oakley smart glasses
Official announcement: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/blog/oakley-meta-
ai-glasses-sport...
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-06-20 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| garbawarb wrote:
| Looks cool but I just hate the heaviness and feel of wearing
| acetate. If they ever make titanium smartglasses I'll be all over
| them.
| kube-system wrote:
| Titanium is about 3-4x the density, they're normally light only
| because less material can be used... which is probably
| problematic when used as an enclosure for electronics.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Titanium for electronics isn't much of a problem (look at
| Apple Watch and a bunch of Apple product). The issue is that
| it's a considerably more expensive material (every cents
| count when you scale to consumer electronics) and a bit
| harder to work with.
| woleium wrote:
| The material is not the majority of the expense. The cost
| comes from the difficulty encountered when working the
| metal using standard tooling. It is difficult to work, low
| tolerance and high failure rates made it impractical prior
| to modern (very expensive) machines.
| kube-system wrote:
| We were talking about weight -- you don't hang those
| devices on your face.
|
| Titanium glasses are lightweight because a very minimal
| amount of material is used. This is possible for regular
| glasses because you can make them with a ~1mm cross-
| section. When you want to put electronics inside of them,
| you need much more material.
| diggan wrote:
| Although parent asking for titanium for the feeling, so
| maybe something in-between would be fine? Lightweight
| material inside and structurally, but titanium or
| something else as the "skin".
| saltcured wrote:
| Like a surfboard, or a toucan's beak.
|
| I assume the poster above imagined the something inside
| could just be voids, like a tiny aircraft. But yes, some
| kind of low density filler could also add some stability
| in areas you don't want mass metal but also don't have
| electronics or battery "cargo".
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't think a titanium coating over something else is
| going to deliver that.
|
| I think the reason titanium glasses feel nice is
| primarily because they have minimal contact with your
| skin and very low mass.
|
| My frames weigh 6 grams, with lenses they're 14 grams.
| The Meta Ray Bans are 50 grams. If you could make the
| frames from pure helium they still wouldn't feel close.
| isatty wrote:
| Why? If 1mm cross section titanium is just as or stronger
| why does it need to be thicker? For anchors?
| kube-system wrote:
| Because the electronics used in smart glasses go _inside_
| of the frames. It 's not a structural problem, it's a
| packaging problem.
| LtdJorge wrote:
| Does sheet titanium not exist? I know it's a tough metal,
| I don't know if it would be feasible to make it out of
| folded sheet titanium.
|
| Edit: Just checked, it does exist.
| kube-system wrote:
| The weight is the issue. The guy above said he doesn't
| like the weight of _acetate_ glasses. Acetate frames for
| traditional glasses are 10-20 grams. Titanium frames for
| traditional glasses are 5-10 grams.
|
| Between the weight of material and the electronics, I
| don't really see anything approaching the feel that
| someone that discerning would want.
| saltcured wrote:
| You may be right, but I think they are imagining a
| tubular frame construction. It would contain a volume of
| battery or electronics inside the hollow skin.
|
| I guess the problem is can you extrude and form something
| so small with the precision and metallurgical properties
| you want to maintain. You probably don't want to just
| cast it in the final shape, right?
| andoando wrote:
| The point being made was, the weight saving from
| titanitum isn't going to be noticeable when the bulky of
| the weight is the electronics.
| LtdJorge wrote:
| In that case, the savings would be little.
| LtdJorge wrote:
| Ah, didn't see this comment. Yes, that's exactly what I
| was thinking, a hollow structure.
| LtdJorge wrote:
| Yep, but seems like the discussion was around solid
| titanium, that's why I mentioned sheet titanium. I can't
| see how making the fame out of thin titanium with hard
| bends (like how computer cases are made of steel sheets,
| but on a small scale) would make it weigh more than the
| solid acetate version. Should also be much stronger.
| kube-system wrote:
| The "solid" frame titanium glasses I'm wearing right now
| are 0.5mm thick. If you were to put a housing the same
| thickness around a 60x10mm cylinder you've got something
| about the weight of an acetate frame, with zero
| electronics inside. Add the electronics and you've got
| something heavier, just with titanium as the material.
|
| I mean, the material is nice, but you're not making it
| light weight that way.
| LtdJorge wrote:
| Even if it's an order of magnitude more expensive, they
| would make money on the glasses. Oakley (and every brand
| controlled by the Luxotica monopoly) glasses have extreme
| margins. On the order of, could be sold for under $20
| making a profit but are sold for $300+. I don't think the
| titanium work and the electronics can offset that.
| LorenDB wrote:
| Come on, why would you make smart glasses with a clear shell and
| then hide the electronics behind an inner shielding layer? I want
| all the circuits on display.
| sodokuwizard wrote:
| ah yes to satisfy that world famous market of giga electronics
| nerds in oakleys
| longtimelistnr wrote:
| Well i know this is sarcastic but have you seen the preferred
| design language of the Oakley founder? Exposed circuitry is
| righttt up his alley.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| it sounds like he got in trouble for exposing his circuitry
| in public
| duped wrote:
| Light can affect the operation of many electronics, it's just
| easier to not worry about it and enclose the entire thing. Some
| models of RPI had this problem.
| Anon1096 wrote:
| There was a limited edition that was translucent so you could
| see inside pretty recently https://www.meta.com/blog/ray-ban-
| meta-coperni-limited-editi...
|
| Believe if you worked at Meta when the glasses just came out
| there was also a limited fully transparent frame as well.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| My elderly mother-in-law is slowly going blind. She relies on
| Meta glasses to read print on everything -- from the back of a
| can to the mail. She also uses them to help locate items around
| the house, whether it's something on the counter or in the living
| room.
|
| I've tried the glasses myself, and I'm convinced that wearable
| eyewear like this will eventually replace the mobile phone. With
| ongoing advances in miniaturization, it's only a matter of time
| before AR and AV are fully integrated into everyday wearables.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > and I'm convinced that wearable eyewear like this will
| eventually replace the mobile phone
|
| Once there is an actual usable in-glasses screen, I will agree.
|
| A few years ago I tried someone's smartglasses with a screen.
| It basically had similar functionality to my first Fitbit: it
| would show texts, notifications, caller ID.
|
| I _really_ want one of those and went looking, but couldn 't
| find it.
| ge96 wrote:
| What style was it, nreal (bulky) or something like Frame
| (though lower end in quality)
| themanmaran wrote:
| You might be interested in the EvenRealities G1 [1]. It's the
| absolute best form factor I've seen for just the text HUD
|
| https://www.evenrealities.com/
| stickfigure wrote:
| Looks amazing. Unfortunately from a Chinese company, and
| given how deeply integrated with my email, calendar, etc it
| would be... no interest.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Do you live in China? If not, why would you care?
|
| Meta, Microsoft, Apple, etc. are far more likely to
| snitch on you to the government you actually live under.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Despite the trainwreck that is the current presidential
| administration, we have a hell of a long way to fall
| before our government is as malevolent China's.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| I assume you mean the US. The same one that did a coup in
| my country, bombed my neighbours, invaded countless
| countries and is currently fully supporting a genocide.
|
| It certainly doesn't compare, but not the way you think.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Eh, they are doing a bunch of the above in the Myanmar
| conflict.
| ethersteeds wrote:
| You seem to assume that the risk begins and ends with
| government persecution/prosecution.
|
| I'm not the gp, but for me, there are several bigger
| concerns:
|
| First, the possibility that access could be leveraged for
| intelligence gathering or industrial espionage. The goal
| might be geopolitics, but I still don't want my data to
| be fodder nor do I want to explain to my employer that
| I'm responsible for their breach.
|
| Second, the possibility of becoming collateral damage
| during an escalation of hostilities between my country
| and China. If I've grown dependent a device, I face
| significant disruption if they block cloud services or
| even outright remotely brick it. The war in Ukraine
| demonstrated this isn't limited to the other country's
| exports, but they're still at the greatest risk.
|
| So yeah, a company snitching on me to big brother I live
| under is just one threat I have to consider when giving
| access to all my data.
| alex1115alex wrote:
| I have a pair - they're not as integrated as you'd think.
| It's essentially a BLE device that projects text/data
| sent from your phone, so any data transmission depends on
| the companion app you use.
|
| Shameless plug: We build an open source OS for glasses
| that works with them. AugmentOS.org
| stickfigure wrote:
| Oh, then you must be familiar with the landscape! Which
| do you like best, and which companies do you think will
| still be around in a year?
| alex1115alex wrote:
| In terms of all day wearable HUD glasses:
|
| Even Realities G1 are the best HUD glasses on the market
| right now. They're the first pair (with prescription)
| that I can wear all-day without pain, and without looking
| like a dork.
|
| My team used to main the Vuzix Z100 glasses, starting
| with the Vuzix Ultralite reference design that predated
| them. We won't touch them these days (and recently
| stopped selling them on our store).
|
| Others... Meizu StarV Air 2 and INMO GO2: both lack
| public SDK, GO2 is too heavy. Brilliant Labs Frame: cool
| prototyping toy, awful glasses.
|
| For "AI glasses" that have camera, no display:
|
| You have the RayBan and a number of companies making
| these. The only one I can recommend is our upcoming
| Mentra Live (https://mentra.glass). It has the same
| camera sensor as the RayBan, but runs open source
| software & has an SDK.
|
| For more sci-fi glasses that run Android and have display
| + camera, see the INMO Air 3, TCL RayNeo X3. These are
| too heavy to be worn as regular glasses, but are fun
| prototyping tools.
|
| All these companies will exist in 2026. As for a 5 year
| horizon, I'd place my bets on Even Realities, and Vuzix
| (as a waveguide supplier, not consumer HW). Meizu and TCL
| will stick around as Chinese megacorps, though I'm 50/50
| they will continue developing consumer smart glasses.
| Brilliant Labs is cooked unless they turn things around
| with their next pair of glasses.
|
| Google & Android XR: I don't expect their glasses to be
| competitive for at least a few HW generations at minimum.
| In terms of public information, we know they're monocular
| and heavy (>45g), which is an immediate killer for the
| majority of users.
| sroussey wrote:
| I want that with a camera so it can do facial recognition
| from my LinkedIn when I'm at a networking event.
| mdhb wrote:
| Just walk up and ask them their name like a normal person
| rather than doing some creepy fucking surveillance on
| them from across the room.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I'm looking for.
|
| Do you have any experience with their progressives? The
| ones I'm trying are so lousy that I'm going to try
| multifocal contacts next week. According to the order form,
| their progressive lenses seem somewhat decent.
| ian-g wrote:
| I'm very glad your mother in law has use for them.
|
| With that said, I don't think these can replace phones until
| they're quite a lot smaller and lighter. And to make it worse,
| you'd need at least two pairs - regular and sun. Possibly three
| if you're someone who regularly uses safety glasses.
| nhecker wrote:
| Photochromatic coatings --
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photochromic_lens -- have
| existed for a while and are sold on safety glasses, at least
| according to a cursory look at a large online retailer's
| site.
|
| That said, I'm not sure I'd want smart glasses. Being stuck
| on a computer for work, I try to take some time every day to
| be completely free of digital things. It's hard enough to do
| that with a smart phone in my pocket vying for my attention.
| I imagine it would be only harder with smart glasses over my
| eyeballs.
| foobarian wrote:
| They may not replace the current gamut of phone features.
| However; I question how much of current phone functionality
| is actually something users strongly need/want, vs. how much
| is pushed by big tech. It would be pretty great if a small
| core feature set done well in-glass turned out to be enough
| to kick off large scale adoption. Ultimately I think the
| input is probably going to be the hardest issue
| Loughla wrote:
| Read and send messages. Make phone calls. Navigation and
| maps. Set reminders. Navigate a basic Google search, even
| if it's just a top level summary.
|
| Those things on glasses and I ditch my phone immediately.
| ge96 wrote:
| What would be the interface, talking? I know they have
| pinching and hand tracking, guess it's no different than
| people talking "to themselves" while wearing earbuds.
| criddell wrote:
| I don't think I would be super comfortable walking around
| with Meta cameras seeing everything I see in my home. I'm not
| sure I'd trust any of the companies likely to build the
| product with that kind of access to my personal life.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| MQ3 is crawling with cameras for 'inside out' tracking
| which hypothetically could be used in privacy violating
| ways. Currently these are locked down so that you can't
| build interesting AR apps --- you should be able to look at
| a QR code and access a 'location based' XR app but they
| don't allow it, gotta scan with a phone and transfer it to
| your headset with Meta's janky app which shows all the
| "carelessness" of someone who doesn't care to make money.
|
| Meta says they will open it up though.
| criddell wrote:
| I might trust individual developers. I don't trust Meta
| though so as long as the XR app is running on Meta
| hardware, I'm not interested.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'm more worried that shoddy development practices will
| cause the video to freeze up, cause me to fall or crash
| into something and experience "VR to ER" myself.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I don't think so. You still would have to wear glasses, which
| is annoying.
| cshimmin wrote:
| some of us have to wear glasses anyway :/
| dmarcos wrote:
| And contact lenses and lasik are popular because many don't
| want to wear glasses. I see head mounted displays useful in
| constrained scenarios (e.g construction site and tasks
| where you already wear safety glasses and need free hands).
| I have a harder time seeing a world where people ditch
| phones and start voluntarily wearing glasses which is often
| uncomfortable and inconvenient. Just finished 5 miles run
| on treadmill, went to sauna and did bouldering. There's no
| room for glasses but can occasionally check my phone.
| mollerhoj wrote:
| i dont think youre very representative of the general
| population
| dmarcos wrote:
| Contacts and especially lasik are growing in popularity.
| Strong signal people don't enjoy wearing glasses if they
| can avoid it
| someuser2345 wrote:
| > I have a harder time seeing a world where people ditch
| phones and start voluntarily wearing glasses which is
| often uncomfortable and inconvenient
|
| I see this world all the time at the beach; lots of
| people wear sunglasses there.
| dmarcos wrote:
| To be able to see and remove them as soon as they can.
| And even in those scenarios not everybody wear them. Run
| my own little study at beaches, concerts and other
| outdoor activities and noticed less people wear glasses
| than I was expecting in ideal conditions to do so (<50%)
| eloisant wrote:
| Then they'll have to find a way to separate the "smart"
| frame from the prescription lenses, so you can change the
| glasses when your sight changes without having to buy smart
| frame each time - or the other way around, upgrade your
| frames without having to buy prescriptions lenses again.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| Lensology, you tell them the frames, and upload your
| prescription, and they send you the lenses to pop in.
| It's called reglazing, and millions of people do it all
| the time.
|
| Ray Ban does it for their Meta glasses, but Lensology can
| handle stronger prescription lenses.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Anecdotally, I haven't found it possible to buy lenses
| for a particular frame other than when you buy both new
| at the same time. Good luck getting the same lenses next
| time the prescription changes.
|
| The frame will probably change slightly over time to make
| them incompatible.
| kcb wrote:
| Very confused by this. As far as I know it's standard for
| lenses to be custom made for your frame even when you
| purchase them at the same time.
|
| I just sent an old pair of glasses to eyeglasses.com for
| new lenses. I never considered this to be a big deal.
| zie wrote:
| > The frame will probably change slightly over time to
| make them incompatible.
|
| This is probably true.
|
| The rest of your comment is probably not true for most
| people.
|
| It just depends on how strong your prescription is and
| how willing the shop/website is to do special orders.
|
| If you are almost blind, then your choice of
| lenses/frames will be much lower than if you are only
| slightly blind(most people). Any reputable
| eyeglass/optician shop should be able to make custom
| lenses for pretty much any frame. They can't always do
| the super sleek shades that some people like to wear.
| lokar wrote:
| I often get updated lenses for my frames. Is that not
| what you mean?
| xnorswap wrote:
| Maybe we'll work out how to stimulate the optic nerve
| directly and skip to bionic eyes for both corrective
| vision and AR.
|
| We'll need to overhaul the concept of limited liability
| before we do that though, the thought of someone being
| left without their eyes because a company goes bankrupt
| and no-one is at fault is pretty horrifying.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Unfortunately the unmaintained bionic problem is already
| real.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > Then they'll have to find a way to separate the "smart"
| frame from the prescription lenses, so you can change the
| glasses when your sight changes without having to buy
| smart frame each time - or the other way around, upgrade
| your frames without having to buy prescriptions lenses
| again.
|
| Ehh, there is nothing special about the lens, all the
| magic is in the frame, and the rayban and oakley frames
| look very similar to their standard versions. Getting new
| lenses for sunglasses is very common.
|
| Have you never had prescription sunglasses?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, and I am one of "us" but I still think they are
| annoying. I wear contacts most of the time. Glasses are
| just awkward in many situations. In the heat when you get
| sweaty they slide down your nose or completely fall off, in
| the cold when you walk in to a warm house they fog over, in
| the rain they get water spots, the frames are always
| visible and interfere with peripheral vision. I just don't
| care much for them.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Right, I have no interest wearing glasses.
| pizzathyme wrote:
| I agree. Some threshold in the past few years has been passed.
| I wear mine every day (and I don't wear glasses normally).
| Music, photos, videos all super useful. AI is lacking but will
| get better. Feels cool and not-embarassing in public
|
| I think that they've done it, this is Meta's iPod
| ghostpepper wrote:
| > I think that they've done it, this is Meta's iPod
|
| I would love to try these types of devices but there is no
| way I'd ever give money to Meta or put my personal
| information into their systems or encourage my friends and
| family to do so either.
|
| Hopefully Meta puts in a bunch of R&D to see what works in
| this space and then someone else (Apple?) just copies it.
| bredren wrote:
| Me too, I'd never trust that company with anything
| personal. It is bad enough that they can track health meta
| via in quest.
|
| Meta running the show is a non-starter.
| 1shooner wrote:
| Do you encounter people that would rather you not point a
| Meta camera at them as a condition of interacting with you?
| Or is it more task-specific?
| dustbunny wrote:
| I'm interested in hearing more use cases! Anyone else got one?
| Janicc wrote:
| I believe it's going to replace smartphones like smartphones
| replaced computers or more specifically laptops.
| wslh wrote:
| I don't think "replaced" is the right word, just like with
| smart glasses. The form factor and user experience are key
| attributes when choosing a device, independent of raw
| hardware power. It's likely we'll continue to live with
| multiple device types coexisting.
|
| BTW, I have to consciously turn off my cybersecurity mindset
| when thinking about smart glasses. It's hard not to see all
| the new attack vectors they introduce.
| kepano wrote:
| In what way did smartphones replace laptops?
| acuozzo wrote:
| OP is trying to say it'll only be a partial replacement.
| epgui wrote:
| That's exactly the point.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Ordinary people do everything on smartphones nowadays.
| racl101 wrote:
| Yeah I can see that. Teenagers are in specially adroit at
| doing most computer related work from their phone. My
| niece owns a new Macbook and barely cracks it open.
| Prefers to do most things on the iPhone and actually
| manages it.
|
| Me, (old millennial) can not even conceive getting any
| real work done just on the smartphone. But I'm a power
| user. I need to log onto linux servers and administer
| them. Or I need to crack open Excel files and use
| spreadsheets. Not an ordinary user.
| fnord77 wrote:
| it's gotten to the point where genz doesn't know how to use
| laptops/desktops
| andoando wrote:
| For most people, whats the use case of a laptop?
|
| You only really need one for doing some type of work
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Lots of people don't own laptops or desktops. They do all
| computing through a smartphone.
| kube-system wrote:
| Outside of this tech bubble that we are all in, many use
| them as their primary (or only) computer. More than 60% of
| internet traffic is from mobile phones.
| paul7986 wrote:
| It won't replace you can't take selfies with smart glasses!
|
| I wear my Ray Ban Metas a lot (bought in 2023) and love them
| but i can't take selfies with them. I have to pull out my
| phone. They are complimentary to phone tho i do enjoy not
| having my phone on me to take pics, vids and ask it for the
| time now (add 5G to it and it will do more like stream
| music).
|
| Whatever Open AI is working on to replace the iPhone it will
| need to be able take selfies! I'm betting it's just an AI
| Phone with the experience of the movie H.E.R. where almost
| everything is done from the lock screen and it takes the best
| selfies of you (gets you to the best lighting) and everything
| under the sun.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Just stand in front of a mirror.
| paul7986 wrote:
| huh so all selfies will no longer then show peoples'
| complete face (eyes) and taking outdoor selfies you need
| to carry a mirror?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Not all solutions are perfect.
| derwiki wrote:
| Why are selfies so important?
| paul7986 wrote:
| 60% of all Americans take selfies. Im way out of the
| "selfie," demographic yet take a good amount of selfies
| especially when traveling.
|
| Selfies are apart of culture now.. that won't change!
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > you can't take selfies with smart glasses!
|
| Sounds like a value proposition for society, to me!
| bee_rider wrote:
| Smartphones are not even that similar to laptops. Smartphones
| wiped out beepers, old cellphone, PDAs, and decimated MP3
| players and cameras.
|
| Laptops, of course, have the much bigger screen and keyboard,
| not really replicated by smartphones. They have use-cases
| that smartphone can't cover well for hardware reasons. So
| they've stuck around (in a notably diminished form).
|
| If good AR glasses become a thing... I dunno, they could
| easily replace monitors generally, right? Then a laptop just
| becomes a keyboard. That's a hardware function that seems
| necessary.
|
| What niche is left for the smartphone?
| Talanes wrote:
| >Smartphones are not even that similar to laptops.
|
| I believe that was the entire point of the comparison.
| Smartphones replaces SOME use cases of laptops in the same
| way ubiquitous smart glasses could replaces SOME use cases
| of smartphones.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'm not sure how to respond to your post, because it
| seems to ignore the vast majority of mine, including the
| parts that look at pretty similar ideas to what you've
| brought up.
| Talanes wrote:
| Well, I wasn't sure how to respond to yours missing the
| entire conceit of the post before it, so I guess we're
| even.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't think I missed anything. Maybe if I'd only posted
| the bit you quoted that would make sense.
|
| But I also don't think either of us is gaining anything
| through this interaction, so... _shrug_
| airstrike wrote:
| You're missing the fact that the original comparison with
| laptops was a bit tongue in cheek
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't think I missed anything. But maybe my post was
| not very clear?
|
| The post I was responding to clearly meant "like
| smartphones replaced [...] laptops," which is to say,
| they don't think AR glasses will replace smartphones
| (because smartphones didn't completely replace laptops).
| I get that.
|
| Then I pointed out that smartphones did more-or-less
| replace a number of other electronic devices. And there
| are some reasons they didn't fully replace laptops. Then
| I went on to think about the niches that could exist
| should AR glasses become a major thing.
| airstrike wrote:
| > which is to say, they don't think AR glasses will
| replace smartphones (because smartphones didn't
| completely replace laptops). I get that.
|
| I actually read it as "it will be a replacement in some
| ways, but also very much _not_ be a replacement in many
| other ways "
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| A large plurality of young people rarely use a laptop if
| they're not so called knowledge workers, most everything
| can be done by phone. Maybe clubhouse style group audio
| chats will make a comeback and people will jump on the
| ambient computing trend as clearly better than
| interacting with screens all day
| foobarchu wrote:
| The screen itself isn't really the problem people are
| talking about when they refer to "too much screen time".
| Suddenly having the screen be your entire field of vision
| sounds like an even worse situation for the average
| person's attention.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Totally agree as far as AR goggles but the meta glasses
| have no screen, they're just a voice in your ear
| mrweasel wrote:
| It always seems insane to me when people book plane
| tickets, do taxes, banking, writing email and stuff like
| that on a phone. That's big screen tasks, you can't do
| those on your phone, not enough space to navigate safely.
| artursapek wrote:
| All of this will be done by AI soon.
| jerlam wrote:
| Not just young people, I see a lot of elderly adults
| using tablets and phones as their primary computing
| device. They're cheaper and more user-friendly if you
| don't care about performance or multitasking. At the same
| price, a tablet is a far better choice than a laptop.
|
| If you are afraid of technology, Android or iPadOS is
| lightyears ahead of Windows or MacOS.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| A lot of lower income people might only have a cheap
| android phone.
|
| It's more than enough to handle paying bills, applying
| for jobs, etc. Hell, a Bluetooth keyboard and a bit of
| grit + GitHub CodeSpaces and you can write develop
| applications.
|
| You can also cast your screen to a TV or on a handful of
| phones use USB c to HDMI.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Smartphones replaced laptops. A huge amount of people don't
| own a laptop or desktop PC - they do all computing via
| smartphone or maybe tablet. My wife almost never opens her
| laptop, nor does my mom
| bee_rider wrote:
| But people still do buy some laptops.
|
| It is hard to say when the peak of laptops in circulation
| was, right? Because simultaneously the tech has been
| maturing (longer product lifetimes) and smartphones have
| taken some laptop niches.
|
| I'm not even clear on what we're measuring when we say
| "replace." Every non-technical person I know has a
| laptop, but uses it on maybe a weekly basis (instead of
| daily, for smartphones).
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I don't know any non-technical people who own laptops,
| personally. Other than work laptops
| layer8 wrote:
| Global PC shipments haven't decreased over the last 20
| years. It's more like smartphones have expanded the
| number of people who do computing.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| You have missed the point utterly. "AR glasses will replace
| smartphones the same way smartphones replaced laptops" --
| they didn't replace laptops. Therefore AR glasses won't
| replace smartphones in the same way smartphones didn't
| replace laptops.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I've already responded to this sentiment in another
| thread. I do kind of find it puzzling that folks are
| reading my post and coming to the conclusion that I
| missed the point, but hey, if I confused enough people
| then I guess I'll take the blame. I've tried to address
| in the follow up.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44330537
| sandcat_ wrote:
| FWIW when I first skimmed your comment I came to the same
| conclusion as everyone else. I don't think people are
| reading closely.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Smartphones are mobile. Glasses with a keyboard would
| require either being fixed to a keyboard location or a
| keyboard with the form factor of a smartphone, and if
| that's the case why do you need the glasses?
| int_19h wrote:
| The idea is that you'd use smart glasses without keyboard
| most of the time, mostly in the same scenarios you'd use
| a smartphone today. But unlike a smartphone, smart
| glasses can _also_ replace a laptop if and when needed by
| pairing with a keyboard.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Smartphones didn't replace laptops.
|
| Laptops and tablets replaced desktops. Nobody sits down in an
| office and does work on a smartphone.
|
| Smartphones replaced phones, pagers, music players and
| cameras.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Smartphones replaced laptops, but not for everything.
|
| Smart glasses will probably do the same to smartphones.
|
| Things are rarely completely replaced, at least not
| quickly.
| gopher2000 wrote:
| Smart glasses will have the potential to cover more use
| cases than a smart phone ever did due to the potential of
| AR-enabled viewing display.
| mulmen wrote:
| The smartphone completely replaced the _personal computer_
| for most people.
|
| 10 years ago all my non-tech friends and family had
| laptops. Now they all use their smartphones as primary
| computing devices. My nephew who just graduated from high
| school and works in IT doesn't even own a personal laptop.
| bee_rider wrote:
| My dad worked from the 90's until recently. He never
| owned a laptop. Until he retired, he went out and bought
| one almost immediately upon retirement, hah.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This makes sense; a personal computer at this point is
| either a phone or a desktop for high performance niches,
| and laptops are in the unsatisfying middle. Particularly
| anything in the netbook or ultrabook segment.
| freehorse wrote:
| I used to agree to this statement, before apple silicon
| came.
|
| Also, mini pcs is a new trend nowadays. I wouldn't say
| that this is the direction things go any more.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| They're good at the performance niche, but how many
| people need performance? The mac is good at coding and
| media editing (not gaming) and that's not an everyday
| person market; I think the market will continue to
| shrink.
|
| I'd also say a mini PC is still a "performant desktop" in
| a smaller form factor, which is probably a reaction to
| gaming desktops becoming unnecessarily large and
| unwieldy. Similar to how importing Japanese kei trucks
| has become popular now that American pickups are sized
| for vanity and not work practicality.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Nobody sits down in an office and does work on a
| smartphone
|
| Now that we have USB-C monitors, phones have USB-C, and
| high-end phones have CPU performance similar to low-end
| desktop CPUs (A18 vs Intel 14100), we could actually start
| replacing laptops with phones for some use cases.
| freehorse wrote:
| The biggest hindrance to this is apple itself with ios.
|
| I would be glad to only have to take an external monitor
| to use with my phone while traveling, but there is little
| I can do and iphones is not very user friendly in such a
| way.
| const_cast wrote:
| I doubt it, these devices have a serious user input problem.
| The cornerstone of computers is human-computer interaction.
| That's what makes these pieces of silicon useful. They're
| tools for humans - meaning, it doesn't matter if the tool is
| better if it can't be used easier.
|
| Smartphones were a step back in a lot of ways. Typing is
| slower. No mouse. Fingers are fat and imprecise. The result
| is most applications were severely dumbed down to work on a
| smartphone.
|
| The trade-off was portability. Everyone can carry a
| smartphone, so it's okay that the human-interaction is worse
| in a lot of ways. Then, when we need that richer interaction,
| we can reach for a laptop.
|
| The problem with smart glasses is they go even a step further
| in how poor the interaction is. Speech as an interface for
| computers is perhaps the worst interface. Yes, it's neat and
| shows up in sci-fi all the time. But if you think about it,
| it's a very bad interface. It's slow, it's imprecise, it's
| wishy-washy, it context dependent. Imagine, for example,
| trying to navigate your emails by speech only. Disaster.
|
| Smart glasses, however, are not more portable than phones.
| Not by much. Everyone already has a phone. So what do we gain
| from smart glasses? IMO, not very much. Smart glasses may
| become popular, but will they replace the smartphone? In my
| opinion, fat chance.
|
| What I think is more likely, actually, is smartphones
| replacing smart glasses. They already have cameras. So the
| capabilities are about the same, except smart phones can do
| WAY more. For most people, I imagine, the occasional "look at
| this thing and tell me about it" usecase can be satisfied by
| a smartphone.
| imiric wrote:
| > Smartphones were a step back in a lot of ways.
|
| I was among the nerds who swore I'd never use a touch
| keyboard, and I refused to buy a smartphone without a
| physical keyboard until 2011. Yes, typing on a screen was
| awful at first. But then text prediction and haptics got
| better, and we invented swipe keyboards. Today I'm nearly
| as fast and comfortable on a touch keyboard as I am on a
| physical one on a "real" computer.
|
| My point is that input devices get better. We know when
| something can be improved, and we invent better ways of
| interacting with a computer.
|
| If you think that we can't improve voice input to the point
| where it feels quicker, more natural and comfortable to use
| than a keyboard, you'd be mistaken. We're still in very
| early stages of this wave of XR devices.
|
| In the past couple of years alone, text-to-speech and
| speech recognition systems have improved drastically. Today
| it's possible to hold a nearly natural sounding
| conversation with AI. Where do you think we'll be 10 years
| from now?
|
| > Imagine, for example, trying to navigate your emails by
| speech only. Disaster.
|
| That's because you're imagining navigating a list on a
| traditional 2D display with voice input. Why wouldn't we
| adapt our GUIs to work better with voice, or other types of
| input?
|
| Many XR devices support eye tracking. This works well for
| navigation _today_ (see some visionOS demos). Where do you
| think we'll be 10 years from now?
|
| So I think you're, understandably, holding traditional
| devices in high regard, and underestimating the
| possibilities of a new paradigm of computing. It's
| practically inevitable that XR devices will become the
| standard computing platform in the near future, even if it
| seems unlikely today.
| tyg13 wrote:
| For me, voice input is an immediate no-go because I don't
| want to have to talk to myself while I'm in line at the
| grocery store, or waiting for my oil change, or in the
| dozens of other situations where I typically use my
| smartphone to do things.
| bandoti wrote:
| Curious to see how this goes. It seems to me it's hard to
| match reality--for example, books, book shelves, pencils,
| drafting tables, gizmos, keyboards, mouse, etc. Things
| with tactile feedback. Leafing through a book typeset on
| nice paper will always be a better experience than the
| best of digital representations.
|
| AR will always be somewhat awkward until you can
| physically touch and interact with the material things.
| It's useful, sure, but not a replacement.
|
| Haptic feedback is probably my favorite iPhone user
| experience improvement on both the hardware and software
| side.
|
| However, I will never be able to type faster than on my
| keyboard, and even with the most advanced voice inputs, I
| will always be able to type longer and with less fatigue
| than if I were to use my voice--having ten fingers and
| one set of vocal cords.
|
| All options are going to be valid and useful for a very
| long time.
| int_19h wrote:
| What is your wpm with a touch keyboard (however fancy) vs
| an actual physical one?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Something that needs to be considered before answering
| that question is that current predictive text engines are
| ridiculously stupid compared to what an LLM (or even an
| "SLM") with access to all of your previous texts could
| do.
|
| When somebody finally gets a clue and implements that, no
| typist on Earth will be able to keep up with it.
| goda90 wrote:
| Voice is slow, but it can be sped up with vocal macros. One
| syllable/non-word noise commands.
|
| There's also touch pads on the side of the smart glasses as
| another input option. And I could imagine some people
| liking little trackball-esque handheld controllers(like
| from the Black Mirror episode "The Entire History of You").
|
| And there's also air gestures using cameras on the smart
| glasses to watch what your hands are doing.
|
| I don't think any of these has the raw data input bandwidth
| that a keyboard has, and for a lot of use cases even a
| touchscreen could be better. But maybe that can be made up
| by the hands-free, augmented reality features of smart
| glasses.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| I don't understand how she's using Meta glasses to read print.
| You mean it's dictating it, or are they prescription? If the
| former, do you need meta glasses for that? If it's the latter,
| wouldn't it work with any glasses?
|
| I also don't understand how they're used to locate items around
| the house. Is there some sort of GPS? Or do you mean it helps
| by virtue of seeing (e.g. prescription)?
|
| AR glasses will be a hit, no doubt, but I don't see what's so
| special about glasses with a mic, camera and speaker on them.
| Seems especially for an older person that it would be more
| useful getting a phone with a screen and pointing at things and
| seeing it on a display.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| The glasses need to be connected to your smartphone, and then
| you ask.
|
| Hey Meta, read the text on this label and tell me what it
| says.
|
| Hey Meta, do you see the keys on the counter?
|
| Hey Meta, can you tell me what is in front of me?
|
| It projects the sound into your ear.
| sampo wrote:
| > I don't understand how she's using Meta glasses to read
| print.
|
| The glasses have a camera, and small speakers near your ears.
| They also have a microphone, so you can give them voice
| commands. Like Amazon Alexa, but in the glasses.
| Dfiesl wrote:
| Yeah the glasses will be dictating the text. For identifying
| objects the cameras in the glasses will be substitutes for
| her failing eyesight, no GPS or prescription needed.
|
| A phone you have to hold in your hand whereas glasses you
| don't. Therefore glasses are superior for these use cases.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Seems scary. If you're using it to read some prescription
| and it says the wrong thing then game over I guess - or if
| internet goes out.
|
| I'm very curious what this person did before these glasses
| were released.
| rocketpastsix wrote:
| they probably used a magnifying glass to help read.
| ackfoobar wrote:
| Yeah same thought here. When I got the glasses and was
| ready to be disappointed by the AI feature, I ask it to
| tell me the sweetener from the ingredient list on a can
| of coke zero. It hallucinated a whole bunch, so I took a
| photo to see for myself what the LLM saw. The resolution
| was very low.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I have perfect vision I have no interest in wearing fake
| glasses all day.
|
| And mobile phones aren't going anywhere because mobile
| computing has peaked: there are no use cases that require a
| device with a different form factor, it's just a matter of
| lifestyle preference.
|
| If we're abandoning screen based devices, I'd rather have a
| small 2000s style flip phone with all the latest tech and LLM
| features built in, than something like glasses, which clash too
| much with fashion choices. Bonus if the battery life is insane.
| TheGRS wrote:
| I haven't seen a lot of progress on it, but I would
| definitely jump on whatever device lets me not have this
| chunky block in my pocket all the time. The concept I saw
| years ago was like a slap bracelet that you could remove from
| your wrist and unwrap into a tablet form-factor.
| andoando wrote:
| Just get rid of screens entirely and focus on software for
| the blind :]
| deadbabe wrote:
| A device slightly bigger than a car key would be perfectly
| fine.
| leptons wrote:
| If you don't currently wear glasses all day every day because
| you need them to see, I can assure you that wearing glasses all
| day every day is not the luxury you might think it is.
|
| It tends to wear on the bridge of the nose after a while. And
| I'm sure these e-glasses are going to be heavier than normal
| glasses with a battery and electronics in addition to the
| normal things glasses have.
| xylo wrote:
| Make sense why Meta invested in Scale AI.
| layer8 wrote:
| I think this underestimates how many people dislike wearing
| glasses, and how much people don't like interacting with people
| wearing non-transparent/colored glasses. You can flip a
| smartphone in and out of your pocket very quickly. The same is
| less practical (where do you put it?) and takes longer with
| glasses.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| They come with a charger case that's pretty pocketable. I had
| some with transition lenses so they weren't full time
| sunglasses
|
| I returned them cause I didn't like forcing a camera into
| everyone's face unannounced and the photos it took weren't
| very good (vertical pics cutoff most stuff in my field of
| view, weird choice of focal length. Maybe with two cameras
| they could have a wide angle and a telephoto but the ray bans
| at least just had the one.
| tw04 wrote:
| And what is the non-verbal input method for these glasses that
| isn't painful to use?
|
| Because it's not going to ever be socially acceptable to just
| start talking to your glasses vs silently typing on a phone in
| most public places/situations.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Brain interface
| Lorin wrote:
| At that point we might as well skip the glasses entirely
| and have it output directly to the visual/audio cortex
| (with shut offs, of course)
| patapong wrote:
| I's possible that communicating brain > computer is much
| simpler than the other direction. I would expect that to
| be the case.
| terminatornet wrote:
| Gonna assume you're not in the US. Here it seems to be
| encouraged to watch TikToks at full volume on the bus at 6 in
| the morning.
| paulcole wrote:
| 1. Ever is a long time.
|
| 2. How confident would you have been about predicting the
| smartphone's effects on society today back in say 1995?
| mrweasel wrote:
| Even if AR glasses can replace smartphones, I think there will
| be a bigger push back than on smartphones. A lot of us have
| seen what smartphones have done to society, and will be
| reluctant to adopt any new form of technology that could have
| the same level of disruption. It's the same as with e.g.
| Facebook or Twitter/X. I've seen what these social media
| companies have inflicted on humanity and I will never signup
| for another one.
| racl101 wrote:
| That's pretty cool. My mom is experiencing a lot of eye issues
| lately. So this is encouraging to hear.
|
| I couldn't fathom if I would use these things for myself (at
| least not now, cause I'm ok with my Smartphone and don't really
| want to get a Meta account), but this, definitely changes my
| perspective a little.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > I've tried the glasses myself, and I'm convinced that
| wearable eyewear like this will eventually replace the mobile
| phone.
|
| I sure as f* hope not. I already struggle with my cellphone
| addiction and all of its constant distractions and assaults on
| my attention span, the last thing I want is something from one
| of the largest advertising companies on the planet glued to my
| face.
| erikig wrote:
| I'm optimistic and I can only hope that the limits of what
| one can wear on the face for longer time periods will create
| a consequent limit to the distracting features that can be
| packed into a daily-use device.
| mdhb wrote:
| I'm glad your mother found some use case for them but honestly
| day to day interactions on the street... if you think you can
| just walk around filming people 24/7 with no sense of consent
| while beaming all that shit back into metas digital
| surveillance machine... I don't know what to tell you other
| than to expect violence.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I was looking at the Ray-Ban version of these for a few minutes
| before I realized there's no HUD... I wouldn't even consider a
| dev kit for one of these unless I had some kind of ability to add
| a dragon ball scouter widget to show the power level on the
| lens...
| excalibur wrote:
| If that's what you want, you can find some pretty good deals on
| Google Glass on ebay.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| won't buy these, or any others smart glasses until there's a way
| to replace the battery. I'm annoy'd enough that it's difficult to
| do with bluetooth headphones... with my quest 3 at least there's
| an option to plug it into an external battery, given the
| traditional use cases.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| A side note, but it is very unfortunate luck that the pendulum of
| fashionable eye-wear has swung back towards 80's/90's style thin
| frame/no frame glasses.
|
| You really need young people to carry tech like this, and needing
| them to wear millennial fashion from 10 years ago so camera and
| compute fit will just make it that much harder.
| sandspar wrote:
| Good point! These would have been a much easier sell when Warby
| Parker was for cool young people instead of for aging dads.
| paxys wrote:
| Why did Zuck think it was okay to post a photo of himself wearing
| them? Does he think his cool looks will drive sales? The little
| interest I had immediately disappeared after seeing it.
| some_random wrote:
| Do you typically make your tech choices based on who they have
| modeling them in ads?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Well, when they're wearables...
| 542354234235 wrote:
| The entire history of advertising would indicate that a lot
| of people do make choices, especially fashion related, based
| on being modeled by beautiful famous people with established
| parasocial relationships with their audience.
| spiderice wrote:
| Whether or not we want to admit it, people _definitely_ make
| tech choices based off how cool the people in the ads look.
| To deny that would be to deny the effectiveness of marketing.
| freehorse wrote:
| Well there is some reason that some people play in ads, and I
| don't.
| foxygen wrote:
| What is wrong with it?
| mkoryak wrote:
| hes trying to show off his 100k watch
| toephu2 wrote:
| Really? What watch is that?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That they're from Meta was the deal-killer for me. (Zuck's mug
| simply reminded me of that fact.)
| const_cast wrote:
| > Does he think his cool looks will drive sales?
|
| Yes. Haven't you seen his new Gen-Z midlife crisis haircut?
| Clearly he is a very cool and relatable guy.
| tomhow wrote:
| Stub for oftopicness
| demosthanos wrote:
| Somehow we've actually managed to regress from 2013's Google
| Glass.
|
| Always-on microphone and camera sold by one of the world's
| sketchiest privacy invaders? Check.
|
| Display that actually takes advantage of the glasses form
| factor? Nope. Sounds like this could just as easily be the
| Humane pin.
| Handy-Man wrote:
| It's not always on. How do you skeptics always manage to get
| things wrong to get your point across?
| demosthanos wrote:
| If you can ask "Hey Meta, ..." while holding a golf club
| and unable to touch a button (which the promo video [0]
| shows you can) then the mic is always on. It may not always
| be beaming data to Meta, but that's a matter of trust,
| which I don't have much of for Meta given their history.
|
| The camera may or may not be always on, but it can be
| turned on by software activated by the always-on mic
| (again, demonstrated by the promo video), so it would be
| best to treat it as though it is.
|
| [0] https://about.fb.com/news/2025/06/introducing-oakley-
| meta-gl...
| elondaits wrote:
| The "Hey *" (Meta, Siri, Alexa) is typically handled by a
| simpler mechanism on a short buffer that triggers the
| proper recording and speech recognition workflow in order
| to save battery. But if you're not going to trust the
| company, then the fact that it responds to Hey Meta
| shouldn't make any difference because it could still be
| quietly recording. The fact that it responds to a wakeup
| prompt changes nothing.
| demosthanos wrote:
| I'm aware of the mechanism, but that mechanism relies on
| a mic that is _always on_.
|
| I agree that the primary issue is that it's a software-
| controlled microphone with no off switch controlled by
| software written by Meta. I only emphasized the wake word
| listening in response to OP's claim that it's not always
| on when it _must_ be.
| meepmorp wrote:
| how can it respond to voice prompts if it's not listening?
| echoangle wrote:
| The claim was always-on mic and camera. The mic might be
| always on, the camera doesn't have to.
| demosthanos wrote:
| I responded to that above. If the mic is always on and
| controls the camera (both of which are demonstrated in
| the promo video), any reasonable approach to infosec
| needs to treat the camera as always on as well.
| echoangle wrote:
| Maybe, but that doesn't mean that the camera is always
| on. It's like saying a person holding an empty gun and a
| magazine is holding a loaded weapon because they can
| quickly reload it. It doesn't really change the effect
| but it's still an error.
| demosthanos wrote:
| Whether an empty gun and a magazine counts as a loaded
| gun varies state-by-state, so the distinction is not as
| clear-cut as you make it sound. New York State penal code
| defines a loaded gun as follows:
|
| > 15. "Loaded firearm" means any firearm loaded with
| ammunition or any firearm which is possessed by one who,
| at the same time, possesses a quantity of ammunition
| which may be used to discharge such firearm.
|
| So I guess I'm using the New York definition of an
| always-on camera.
|
| https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/265.00
| toofy wrote:
| and you trust meta with this? i don't mean to be crass
| but that would be crazy.
|
| they have proven over and over and over and over again
| they are absolutely not trustworthy.
|
| at some point we have to come to grips with the fact that
| people like zuck, elon, andreeson, and other tech
| monarchs are openly hostile and despise us when we ask
| for anything remotely resembling transparency for their
| companies but repeatedly abuse us and openly scoff at our
| privacy.
|
| the fact that we collectively don't understand the
| repercussions of this really is a bad sign.
|
| i very well may have misunderstood your meaning, tho. i
| hope so.
| awongh wrote:
| Crazy how much more acceptable this is only 12 years later.
|
| People were so angry in 2013.
| toast0 wrote:
| Google glass was a display that was up and to the right of
| where you want to be looking.
|
| I don't know about everyone, but I found it pretty hard to
| use. Caveat, I didn't get them fit to me, I was supervising
| an intern working on a speculative Glass project, and they
| were fit to him.
|
| AR would be neat, but voice interfaces are acheivable at an
| approachable cost. I'm not one to talk to a computer, and I
| wear prescription lenses, so these glasses don't appeal to
| me, but I can see there's a market there, not sure how big or
| if Meta can capture it.
| demosthanos wrote:
| Right, I'm not claiming Glass was _good_ , but it at least
| attempted to use the glasses form factor for something.
| toast0 wrote:
| The camera to capture 'what you see' seems like using the
| form factor pretty well.
|
| Mic and speakers, too.
|
| Glass attempted a display, but IMHO, it was unusable, so
| I understand why you would try the same thing with no
| display. Or the same thing, but mounted on your wrist
| (Google Wear).
| kotaKat wrote:
| It's one of those times you just want to "OK Glass" the
| person around you that says "Hey, Meta" with their privacy-
| invading cameras.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Well it shows you what was the real problem with glass, it
| looked dorky. I wish people cared about privacy but in
| general they don't.
| xnx wrote:
| Official source: https://about.fb.com/news/2025/06/introducing-
| oakley-meta-gl...
|
| Not sure why theverge gets linked so much here.
| diggan wrote:
| Usually I prefer second-hand sources over press-releases, as
| press-releses tend to be a bit too much navel-gazing and pats
| on the back.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Right, journalism adds commentary and context. People may
| often think it's bad, or not like or agree with what they
| read, and conflate that with thinking journalism is bad or
| forgetting what it fundamentally is and why it's important
| that it exists. A straight up ad from Facebook would not be
| better than this.
| demosthanos wrote:
| In general I agree, but The Verge in particular tends to
| just say exactly what the press release says with less
| detail. If we're going to do a non-press-release source it
| should be because they're offering context and information
| that the company would not willingly choose to provide
| themselves.
| diggan wrote:
| Yeah, also agree with you in general, if it's the same,
| doesn't really matter :)
|
| But at least the last paragraph seems to be adding
| _something_ , although the rest of the article is indeed
| just a re-hash of the press-release.
|
| > Meta recently signed a multi-year deal with
| EssilorLuxottica, the parent company behind Ray-Ban,
| Oakley, and other eyewear brands. The Meta Ray-Bans have
| sold over two million pairs to date, and EssilorLuxottica
| recently disclosed that it plans to sell 10 million smart
| glasses with Meta annually by 2026. "This is our first
| step into the performance category," Alex Himel, Meta's
| head of wearables, tells me. "There's more to come."
| DHPersonal wrote:
| The difference between the stylish product shot and the goofy
| candid is stunning. The glasses look ridiculous on Zuckerberg.
| jebarker wrote:
| Ridiculous seems strong. They're not my style but I see
| people making far more surprising fashion choices everyday
| badlucklottery wrote:
| I think part of the issue is that Zuckerberg is a smaller
| dude and they're pretty big sunglasses so he has a bit of
| that "Look! I'm wearing dad's glasses!" thing going on.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| So that's half of men and most women ruled out?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Big glasses are actually quite popular with women.
|
| Heavy frames and large lenses tend to compensate for
| larger noses, and other facial issues (although they
| won't come out and say that). Clear glasses can really
| focus on the eyes.
|
| I know a couple of women that have made large, heavy-
| rimmed glasses into a real fashion statement.
| newsclues wrote:
| Oakley quality tanked since luxottica bought them.
|
| Unfortunate.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Whaaaat the heck is going on in the reflections on Mark Z's
| glasses?
| foxygen wrote:
| His wife holding a phone?
| make3 wrote:
| I don't think we should normalize pointing cameras at people's
| faces all the time. I hate these things.
| dynm wrote:
| Maybe they have some light to show if they're on. But is
| everyone supposed to just know that? Pointing a video camera at
| everyone you talk to is an... interesting social choice.
| Glasses like these should be designed with a physical
| mechanisms to cover the cameras.
| robhlt wrote:
| I agree. The white light these turn on when recording is not
| enough for the average person to realize recording is
| happening.
|
| I was visiting a museum yesterday and someone was using these
| to livestream/record their own (bad) tour. Security stopped
| someone doing this with their phone earlier, but had no idea
| what this guy was doing.
| neuralkoi wrote:
| I agree completely with this comment, but I just want to point
| out that this cat's been out of the bag for at least the past
| 10 years.
|
| There's camera's everywhere at this point: every
| doorbell/garage, every store, every light on the street, even
| my friend's pet/baby monitors when I visit. I hate it.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Based on the comments above this sentiment is going away vs. in
| Oct 2023 when i start evangelizing them I heard and saw a lot
| more of I hate these privacy nightmare stuff.
| wiether wrote:
| So how do you prevent Meta from gathering secrets displayed for
| even a tenth of a second on an employee' screen? You'll have to
| ask security to check everyone's glasses now?
| wwweston wrote:
| Meta isn't the last company I'd trust with a wearable always on
| video input (among other data no doubt), but they're in the
| bracket.
| smilespray wrote:
| Who's worse? Palantir?
| testfrequency wrote:
| Yeah no kidding. Curious how someone could not rank Meta in
| dead last. Is the FBI last on your list or above Meta?
|
| At least in regard to Palantir you understand their
| business. Meta masquerades, hides, and cowers their shady
| practices behind consumer friendly products.
|
| Toxic lollipops labeled properly as toxic vs toxic
| lollipops labeled with a tiny * that requires consumer
| research. Which one do you think most people will reach for
| first?
| TheGRS wrote:
| The worst offender of giving my secrets away is still
| myself sadly.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Google is the absolutely bottom of the pile. They're
| literally nothing but a mass surveillance for money
| company.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Or keep it from violating recording and privacy laws?
|
| How are these "smart glasses" legal in places like Germany
| where you (supposedly) can't even have a dashcam?
| madog wrote:
| Not to mention Meta is ad tech so these will be full to the
| brim of tracking and adverts to recoup R+D costs.
|
| I'm yet to be convinced these are useful and not just another
| way to inject ads directly into eyeballs.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Imagine you are driving or using a power tool or cooking with
| these on and an ad starts playing.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I suspect the incentive is less here as headway plays have
| margins of their own and planned obsolesce cycles to ensure
| continued revenue streams. Don't forget Facebook resisted
| advertising for a long time and Zuck was ideologically
| opposed to it until they needed it to survive at all because
| they found no other monetization. I have a theory meta is
| enthralled with the idea of hardwareand its ecosystem
| precisely because it gives them an out from being dependent
| on ad tech. Even the oculus line is more about App Store,
| subscription revenue, and hardware margin and afaik has no ad
| surfaces.
| jpk2f2 wrote:
| The same way you prevent employees snapping photos of secrets
| on their screen. By making and enforcing rules on their usage.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| For the always on glasses (not these, they dont have enough
| battery) they have https://www.projectaria.com/tools/egoblur/
| running (sometimes)
|
| its actually quite good. but it took them twoish years to get
| it into production.
|
| but only for research, not on these glasses.
| Bender wrote:
| This is just my opinion but these look even worse that the
| 1940's+ military issued BC glasses. _BC as in birth control._ [1]
| At least it will be easy to spot the glassholes [2] _for now at
| least._
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_glasses
|
| [2] - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glassholes
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I think those glasses would be considered quite stylish today.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| In the 60s and 70s the NHS glasses (free or mostly free) were
| hated and a target for bullying etc. my mum had a couple of
| pairs, I wish she'd kept them because they were really cool
| by today's standards.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| Still no SDK though, what's the point of smart glasses that only
| do what Meta lets them?
|
| I'm personally more excited about the Mentra Live glasses, which
| are fully programmable with AugmentOS.
| dkobia wrote:
| This. The meta glasses have so much potential and it is
| absolutely frustrating as a developer to have no way to make
| use of it.
| divan wrote:
| Weird take: my biggest annoyance with Meta glasses after 1+ year
| of almost daily usage is that there is no way to switch from Meta
| AI to any other voice AI.
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| Not a weird take. Just a shit product in that regard then.
| msgodel wrote:
| Hah so they're actually _worse_ than my $16 bluetooth
| headphones unless you actually need the camera.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| So there's no AR aspect to the lens on any of these Meta-
| partnered smart sunglasses, right? I assumed that was standard on
| all of them. Naive, I know, because that would require some
| amazing hardware. But it does go to show that we're still far
| from the Star Trek future that other simpleton consumers like
| myself might be hoping for / expecting.
| woodrowbarlow wrote:
| if by "AR" you mean 3d spatial environment mapping; correct,
| meta glasses don't have that.
|
| i would argue, though, that having integrated access to AI that
| can react to what the user is seeing is a form of digitally
| augmented reality.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Visual AR is what I meant, yes. Along the lines of the first
| paragraph of this article:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
| dustbunny wrote:
| I was stoked when I saw these headlines cause I generally prefer
| Oakley to Ray Ban in terms of style, but these look nothing like
| Oakley's! Personally I don't like round glasses, I like more
| square glasses. Dang!
| post_break wrote:
| Until they make it so you can replace the battery I'm not going
| to buy.
| kgilpin wrote:
| I will miss being able to see people's eyes.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| You can get them non-tinted, probably many people do.
| Raed667 wrote:
| Does it even matter if they have Oakley or any other logo on
| them? Aren't they all luxotica anyway?
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| Yes! Your 10$ and 600$ are made in the same place by the same
| company with largely the same materials.
|
| I discovered goodr recently and they are great. 25$ high
| quality sunglasses that I can actually trust have real UV
| ratings. Seeing people wear ray bans or oakleys is really funny
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| and when you inevitably lose your goodrs, nbd, just get
| another set for $25
| tsurba wrote:
| Thankfully in the EU you are not even allowed to sell
| sunglasses without proper UV protection, and can just pick up
| sunglasses from any market and trust they are fine, if a
| little flimsy.
|
| EDIT: ok apparently anywhere else than the poorest of
| countries, too, really.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Sorta. Oakley makes a lot more than just sunglasses and as far
| as I know does plenty of R&D in house.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| you're correct it is luxotica all the way down.
|
| The difference is that oakley are sports glasses, which means
| that meta can now start sponsoring sports events, which they
| couldnt do with rayban.
|
| whats interesting, is that these glasses look normal, and not
| like the standard disphit magnets that oakley normally cater
| for
| toephu2 wrote:
| No mention of weight in the article or on the official product
| page?
| noisy_boy wrote:
| That's why they were spamming me several times in the last few
| weeks to buy the ray ban ones - trying to clear inventory.
| oflannabhra wrote:
| I would love some sunglasses for running that show some basic
| metrics (similar to my Apple Watch) for my workout, equivalent to
| the FORM Smart Swim 1 [0]. However, I would mostly prefer this to
| be a dumb screen, with all the smarts off loaded to a watch or
| phone. I'm not sure why companies keep insisting on building such
| smart glasses as independent products.
|
| [0] - https://www.formswim.com/products/smart-swim-goggles
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| In other hopefully unrelated news, the CTO of Meta just got sworn
| in as a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Resist and bite
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Cool, now you'll have to charge your glasses every day? I really
| hope this won't become the norm where all people will literally
| be strapped to their devices 24/7 minus sleep time. Oh well, we
| sortof live in this world, everybody's scrolling through their
| feeds already on their smart phones already. The technology is
| cool though, too bad it's used to extract all our attention.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| We have other devices we are strapped to at sleep time to
| monitor our sleep data.
| divan wrote:
| You just put them into the case, similar how it is with
| Airpods.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > everybody's scrolling through their feeds already on their
| smart phones already
|
| It's kinda weird to me that this feels so dystopian.
|
| Before smartphones it's not like I was sitting there
| appreciating the world around me. I was just bored and unhappy.
| Now I'm paying my bills, watching funny videos, looking up
| interesting things about something I heard about earlier in the
| day, etc.
|
| But still, there's something off-putting about a group of
| strangers doing something mundane like waiting for a bus and
| staring at their phones the whole time.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| If you were unhappy before, I doubt smartphones have made you
| happier. They relieve boredom for sure but here's the kicker:
| boredom is good for you.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Cute spyware.
|
| This is exactly why regardless of how breakthrough Meta makes
| their wearables, it will never reach full market potential as
| their brand will always be known as a privacy nightmare. Apple is
| going to win here if they can get the price right.
|
| VR I think most people can rationalize it as these headsets are
| used in very controlled states, like at home on the couch or
| living room - but for Meta to convince people to use this in
| their every day life..hard sell.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| This is a very "inside baseball" take. The average person just
| does not care at all about privacy from large corporations.
| It's not even on their radar as a topic about which to have an
| opinion.
|
| I think the biggest hurdles to widespread adoption are ease of
| connectivity (getting pics and videos "out" of glasses and onto
| phone/laptop/cloud), ultra high def images, size of on device
| storage, and battery life. Those are tough, given the form
| factor. But, if cracked, these will be huge.
| tiahura wrote:
| The main concern of the average person is to not look like a
| dork. Second, is interoperability with the services upon
| which they rely. So, privacy concerns won't matter to most,
| but being trapped in a Meta garden will.
| sekai wrote:
| > This is a very "inside baseball" take. The average person
| just does not care at all about privacy from large
| corporations
|
| Google Glass remembers...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| You're claiming google glass failed bc of privacy concerns?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Privacy was certainly one of the widely stated objections
| to Google Glass, especially after an app that allowed you
| to snap a photo by double blinking appeared.
| jajko wrote:
| Apple goggles which only work in apple ecosystem, on purpose
| degrade themselves if anything else is used, and privacy...
| well thats a lengthy topic with apple. No, thank you.
|
| In Switzerland we have a nice law that forbids people filming
| others without their consent. And law is actually enforceable
| here, fines are juicy and repeatable offenses punished harshly.
| I personally wouldn't outright punch in the face a person
| wearing such glasses but asked them to stop wearing them around
| me and my kids, and where it goes further depends on them.
|
| Also, why is the design in those so weird? They look like kids
| glasses for 2 bucks, all photos seem like they are not sitting
| on the face well, zuck including.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >I personally wouldn't outright punch in the face a person
| wearing such glasses but asked them to stop wearing them
| around me and my kids, and where it goes further depends on
| them.
|
| Quick to justify violence for someone that opened with "the
| government will protect me with fines after the fact". Just
| noticing.
| freehorse wrote:
| > law that forbids people [...] fines are juicy [...] punch
| in the face
|
| This escalated fast.
| pfortuny wrote:
| "Unable to play videos without cookies". OK, Meta, I can see your
| game.
| edwardbernays wrote:
| I think wearing smart glasses from any ad-tech surveillance
| company ought to be considered anti-social, and we should
| normalize ostracizing people who wear these in public. Want to
| wear them in your own home? Fine. Don't record me. This is now
| not just surveillance but sousveillance.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Came here to say exactly this. Someone wearing this in public
| should be considered as a brazen attempt to record others en
| masse without consent. In fact, it's worse because it's data
| being harvested for and siphoned to a third party, in real
| time, entirely for their enrichment.
|
| We already have enough mass surveillance devices. But I suppose
| two arguments could be made (1) we don't need more of these, or
| (2) peak surveillance has already been achieved, and adding one
| more doesn't make any difference.
| edwardbernays wrote:
| I think this is a reasonable place to draw a bright, red
| line. It'll make us look unreasonable if we act unreasonably.
| What's really harming us is that we don't have a formalized
| value system from which to engage in rhetoric, nor do we have
| a standard rhetoric which people can easily engage from and
| against.
| aanet wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember that the very first adopters of Google
| Glass were called glassh*les, and other terms of varying degrees
| of endearment, no thanks to the techbros who used them in showers
| / restrooms and such.
|
| What makes these FB glasses any different / special? Do they
| automagically obscure the views when in compromising positions?
|
| /sarc
| sejje wrote:
| Society accepting a total lack of privacy is what's changed
| kunzhi wrote:
| I'm a 90s kid so there's something poetic about Zuck choosing
| Oakley for this, feels on-brand for him.
|
| In my mind it was inevitable that we would reach this point. The
| novel Snow Crash predicted this exact phenomenon (along with the
| Metaverse, of course, which is where they are trying to drive
| this). It's the same with companies issuing cryptocurrencies and
| the like.
|
| We aren't totally locked in to the techno-feudal state just yet,
| but we're getting there. Pretty fascinating how foreseeable these
| last many years and decades have been.
| username223 wrote:
| > Pretty fascinating how foreseeable these last many years and
| decades have been.
|
| It's a twisted kind of foresight, a lot like prophesies in
| ancient stories, that both predict the future and steer their
| subjects toward it. Neal Stephenson wrote books that appealed
| to (many, but not only) nerdy boys during their formative
| years. Lo and behold, 30 years later some of those boys have
| achieved wealth and power, and are trying to make random
| aspects of those books real.
|
| Keep that in mind if you ever write a YA novel...
| kunzhi wrote:
| Yeah it's odd. Was it a warning or a prophecy? Was it both?
| Hard to say I suppose.
| skhameneh wrote:
| > choosing Oakley for this, feels on-brand
|
| I get the sentiment, but I really enjoyed the Oakley Flak
| series, the fit was superb. BUT, I hated the feeling that it
| was perceived as a statement rather than utility. I bought them
| originally for high field of vision and blocking glare when
| riding bikes.
|
| I lost a couple pairs and one got scratched really bad - and I
| don't have a nice alternative in mind that fits a reasonable
| budget. *Am open to suggestions, I need ONE nice pair of
| polarized sunglasses that'l last.
| kunzhi wrote:
| _> I really enjoyed the Oakley Flak series, the fit was
| superb._
|
| Oh for sure, they were quite good, there was a real reason
| they became popular. But like you said, it got to be annoying
| that wearing Oakleys was a statement. (Plus, at least where I
| lived, they were part of the "douche uniform.")
|
| In terms of recommendations, I'm still getting lots of
| mileage out of my Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and they're polarized.
| notatoad wrote:
| he didn't really choose oakley for this though, this is just
| the oakley-branded version of the ray-ban product that is
| already out.
| toephu2 wrote:
| Notice how the weight isn't advertised anywhere on the product
| page.
| hyperadvanced wrote:
| These little freaks want us to surveil each other so bad. Anyone
| wearing these things instantly becomes a pariah outside of SV
| fantasy land
| mfkp wrote:
| I'd like to thank Meta for permanently banning all of my accounts
| with no warning and no ability to appeal a few months ago. Now no
| need to waste money on these overpriced spy goggles.
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| But what do they do?
|
| A:
|
| With Oakley Meta's glasses, you can:
|
| Capture high-quality video and photos hands-free with a built-in
| ultra-wide 12 MP camera.
|
| Listen to music, podcasts and more through Bluetooth speakers
| seamlessly integrated into the frames
|
| Make and take phone calls hands-free
|
| Live-stream your adventures, travels or daily life
|
| Use Meta AI for instant information and assistance - just say
| "Hey Meta".
|
| ----
|
| If you don't need the camera then just use a smartwatch that does
| much more. Maybe get a camera wrapped to your forehead instead.
| akomtu wrote:
| Next: Meta announces a smart wristwatch that you would put on
| your right hand.
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