Latest / In The Loop / Are Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Suddenly Cool?

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Are Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Suddenly Cool? · In The Loop

• 0:00
  Imagine a world where you don't need a mobile phone because
• 0:02
  information just appears contextually in front of you
• 0:06
  exactly when you need it. When language is automatically
• 0:10
  translated as you speak to a person so you can just read them
• 0:13
  as subtitles, and as you navigate cities, you can see
• 0:16
  arrows appearing on the street, directing you to your ideal
• 0:20
  destination. In a world like this, you
• 0:23
  describe technology as ambient. Always there, always present,
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  but rarely in the way. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg
• 0:30
  released the Ray Ban Meta glasses.
• 0:32
  The technology itself actually flopped on stage.
• 0:35
  But regardless of the failed demos, I think they represent
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  potentially a look into the future of human machine
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  interaction. In today's episode, I'm going to
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  investigate whether or not we're at one of those inflection
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  points. This is in the loop with Jack
• 0:50
  Horn. I hope you enjoy the show.
• 1:04
  So let's start with what actually happened in last week's
• 1:07
  announcements. So on September 17th, last week,
• 1:11
  the Meta Connect event, which is like Meta's biggest event of the
• 1:14
  year, Mark Zuckerberg basically took the stage to announce the,
• 1:17
  what he believes the ideal form of super intelligence because
• 1:21
  they actually announced the Ray Barn glasses starting at about
• 1:24
  $800 and coming out at the end of this month.
• 1:27
  Every single pair comes with this Meta neural band, which is
• 1:30
  this really innovative piece of technology that they themselves
• 1:33
  have produced, which uses electromyography, which is this
• 1:36
  technology that essentially reads the electrical signals in
• 1:38
  your hand. So little movements with your
• 1:41
  fingers or your wrist can obviously result in you taking
• 1:44
  action in the glasses. And to be honest, the, the
• 1:47
  product's actually quite impressive on paper.
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  We're looking at a full colour high resolution hood displays
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  your heads up display position just off the side of your field
• 1:56
  of vision in the glasses. And this play covers about a 20°
• 1:59
  field of view. What I found also really
• 2:01
  impressive actually was the the fact that the display cranks out
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  about 5000 nits of brightness. And obviously nits is a word
• 2:08
  that most people are not that familiar with.
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  But to put in perspective, most smartphone screens Max out about
• 2:14
  800 to 1200 nits and even the brightest tablets rarely exceed
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  1600. So this means that you can
• 2:21
  actually see the display very clearly in direction light,
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  which obviously being a pair of glasses is something really
• 2:26
  important and previously has completely played all I guess
• 2:30
  smart glasses projects. It's also got 12 megapixel
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  camera and can record at 1080P, which is kind of crazy.
• 2:37
  It's also got microphone technology called beam forming,
• 2:40
  which is essentially the microphone being able to focus
• 2:43
  on sound that's coming from in front of you and focusing in on
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  that, as well as open ear speakers.
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  And it weighs about 69 grams, which is the weight of a chicken
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  egg, but still about 17g heavier than the previous generation
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  because it didn't have a screen in the previous generation.
• 3:00
  So yeah, I think it's quite interesting.
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  And you know, though it's worth noting that obviously during the
• 3:05
  demo it was a bit of a flop because there was 2 pro high
• 3:08
  profile attempts to showcase some of the most innovative
• 3:11
  features and it didn't work. I'm quite interested.
• 3:14
  A little side note, I think it's interesting that the fail the
• 3:17
  demos actually going wrong. The first attempt was a cooking
• 3:21
  influencer on stage, obviously in front of this big audience
• 3:23
  who tried to use the glasses for recipe help.
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  And he clearly said, you know, hey, meta start live AI.
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  Now what was meant to happen is that the glasses start speaking
• 3:33
  out loud and having step by step instructions appear on the
• 3:35
  screen. But instead the glasses kind of
• 3:39
  lagged out for a few awkward seconds and then suddenly jumped
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  ahead and skipped the recipe. So obviously it didn't really
• 3:45
  work very well and he had to kind of stop mid demo and blame
• 3:49
  it on the Wi-Fi. And then it happened again with
• 3:51
  Mark Zuckerberg. He actually tried to take a
• 3:53
  WhatsApp call during the event for apparently the CTO and
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  basically, as you can imagine, it didn't connect.
• 4:12
  Mark Zuckerberg was visibly fumbling and trying to press
• 4:15
  different buttons to try and make this work and eventually
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  gave up. And I feel for them.
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  Now I do a lot of demos at Mindset.
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  You can literally have a product work a million times when you're
• 4:25
  practising and then in front of a live group of people it it can
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  go wrong. It does happen now and again.
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  They released an update within kind of 48 hours and all the
• 4:34
  bugs were fixed and and the problems were quite reasonable
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  as well. But either way, I thought it was
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  quite an interesting side note because gosh, that must have
• 4:42
  been awkward. Anyway, let's dig into what the
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  glasses actually do. And I guess the use cases for
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  these that are they're quite interesting to me.
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  So first and foremost, you've got live captions and
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  translations. It feels like 2025 is the year
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  of live translation because I don't know if people have seen
• 5:00
  it, but Apple Airpods just released this new feature in
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  there. I think it's their Gen. 3 or
• 5:04
  Gen. 4 Airpods. But instead obviously just being
• 5:07
  sound. And the reason it's worth noting
• 5:09
  is because it's a stand out, I guess, capability that gets most
• 5:12
  early adopters quite excited. I mean, I'm probably in that
• 5:15
  category. I don't think I'd buy the Meta
• 5:18
  Ray Ban glasses for just that feature, but it is really cool.
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  So the glasses can listen to anyone that's speaking to you
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  and display, I guess captions just as they're speaking.
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  And even more impressively, they can translate between languages
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  just on the fly. Just imagine, you know, going to
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  Spain or wherever else you're going, travelling in the world
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  and just speaking to anybody and having those subtitles appear
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  that that's really cool. And for accessibility, this
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  could be huge. You know, imagine someone that
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  might be hard of hearing or deaf or someone that's got that's
• 5:51
  heart of sight and be able to have someone or the AI read out
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  what people are saying real time or have subtitles appear
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  underneath them. So yeah, it's a really great
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  feature for accessibility too. And early testers apparently
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  have reported that it works quite well in quiet
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  environments, though it can apparently struggle when there's
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  lots of noise going on. It can accidentally sort of pick
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  up stray words from nearby conversations.
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  And I guess it's probably probably quite a similar
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  experience to anyone that uses digital note taker UPS during
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  video calls. Sometimes it gets muddled up
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  between two people speaking and it labeling it as the same
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  person speaking. Still, even with some issues, I
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  think it's going to be a really exciting feature and has real
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  use case in the world. Second, you've got navigation of
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  maps. I'm actually just really, I've
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  always thought this is very cool, this idea where you can
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  just be walking around a street and seeing arrows appear or, you
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  know, just just general guidance that isn't in a map and you have
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  to have your, you know, head down inside a phone to see where
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  you're going. And at the moment, there's some
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  limitations to this. The glasses do provide a kind of
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  turn by turn walking directions with arrows and mini maps
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  appearing on the glasses themselves in your peripheral
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  vision. So yeah, I think although it's
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  still in a map and it's not placing arrows onto the street
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  as I was describing it, it'll probably get there eventually.
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  And I had the idea of not having to look at your phone as you're
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  kind of navigating environments, just having it in your glasses
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  instead. I think the way they've
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  implemented it is quite interesting as well.
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  You know, the display is positioned so it doesn't block
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  your entire central vision. It's more like kind of having
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  AGPS overlay, you know, in the corner of your eye.
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  And at 5000, it's a brightness, as I said, about four times
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  brighter than a mobile phone. You can therefore see it in
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  direct sunlight. And they're built in some
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  security and safety measures, such as if you're moving at high
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  speed, it's going to try and stop you using the feature.
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  Or if you're, you know, biking or driving, it's going to try
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  and stop you doing it. The only real big problem I see
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  right now is the fact that they don't support Google Maps or
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  others. And we just know that those
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  technology providers are so far ahead in the map space compared
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  to, let's say, Meta, because Google has so much traffic
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  information that's up to date and root updates and things like
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  that. So the third use case is quite
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  interesting to me is message triaging and general
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  communication. So the neuro band comes into
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  effect here because, you know, incoming texts or calls or app
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  notifications can just appear in your lens and you can just
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  respond without reacting or looking at your phone.
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  So you can use the neural band. You can kind of pinch your
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  fingers a little bit or make subtle wrist movements to select
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  an option or reply to a message and things like that.
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  And what's quite surprising here is Monkey's Brown.
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  So for those that don't know him, he's the biggest YouTube
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  tech reviewer in the world. He has the power to make or
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  break a product launch, really. And he actually said it works
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  really, really well. And he did a big in depth review
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  of that. I recommend go check that out.
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  So yeah, for a lot of people online are saying it's genuinely
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  useful and even people describing it as kind of magical
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  experiences here. Now for me personally, I would
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  never, ever, ever, ever in a million years allow
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  notifications and texts and things like that appear on my
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  screen in front of my eyesight. I have all notifications turned
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  off. I don't like it being super
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  intrusive and dragging me back to applications, but I know many
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  people will love that. Then we come into the last use
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  case that are really interesting, which is content
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  creation. Obviously you've met a a giant
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  network of creators. The incentive for those creators
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  to create content and be pushed by meta on their applications
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  also makes sense and they've upgraded it to enable that use
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  case really well. So they've got, as I said, 12
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  megapixel camera and 1080P filming.
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  The camera also shows you where on what is being filmed because
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  previous glasses actually you couldn't really tell if the
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  camera was focusing on one thing over another.
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  You can also zoom in just by rotating your wrist, like
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  turning a dial and start recording with kind of finger
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  movements, which I also think pretty cool.
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  There's also an LED light that kind of flicks up on the glasses
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  to activate when recording. So you actually are able to
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  notify people around you that you're recording.
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  Again, there's a lot of privacy fears and concerns with these
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  glasses and say, being at the gym or doing things and suddenly
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  you're being filmed without you knowing it.
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  And as you can imagine, you can film things like reels and stuff
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  straight to the application and do live streaming and stuff like
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  that. So that's all the things it can
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  do. But importantly, I guess the
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  question is, will this be successful or is it going to be
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  another flop? Well, I'm going to try and
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  attempt to answer that and give my my viewpoint.
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  So when this technology typically comes out, it's often
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  seen as a bit fanciful by many people.
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  Like people I roll, they don't think it'll ever catch on.
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  And I think the smartphone evolution over time officers
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  probably the clearest road map to understand whether or not the
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  smart glasses can actually catch on and importantly cross the
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  chasm from say early adopters that really like, you know, very
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  niche features to the mainstream.
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  So with that context in mind, in the early 2000s, mobile phones
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  like, you know, the BlackBerry 957, the Palm trio, very early
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  Nokia's were incredibly popular for e-mail and very basic web
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  access, but appealed mainly to business users and very early
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  adopters. And that's what they were often
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  marketed as. They're very clunky interfaces,
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  lots of big keyboards, very poor battery life.
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  And in general, the public saw them as a expensive tool for
• 11:25
  business people or tech lovers. Now, obviously, as everybody
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  knows, the inflection point came around 2000 and seven, 2010 with
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  the iPhone and the Android, mainly the Android.
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  And obviously, several factors aligned into what became
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  literally a generational product.
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  You know, we had improved hardware, much faster chips so
• 11:47
  things could run faster and the phone could be much more
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  lightweight. We had new touchscreens that
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  replace, you know, styluses and big keyboards.
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  And very famously, the BlackBerry CEO said no one will
• 11:59
  ever want to use anything other than a keyboard.
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  And you could argue that the smart glasses right now are in
• 12:05
  that BlackBerry era right now because Meta sold about 2
• 12:09
  million Ray Ban glasses since about 2023, which is actually
• 12:13
  quite respectable for what is actually a new category.
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  But it's very small compared to that $1.5 billion smartphone
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  user because that market is huge.
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  So it almost mirrors how maybe a few million people are using
• 12:26
  PDAs and and things like that before the iPhone changed
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  everything. Zuckerberg himself actually
• 12:31
  referenced this third generation rule, which is where
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  breakthrough consumer electronics typically hit their
• 12:37
  stride in the third iteration, selling between 5 and 10 million
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  units if it's going to be destined for mass success.
• 12:45
  And I think Ray Ban display represents Meta's third attempt.
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  They had stories in 2021. They had the Meta glasses
• 12:52
  launched in 2023, and now the display glasses in 2025.
• 12:56
  And so you could argue this is the iPhone 3GS moment where the
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  technology might finally mature and achieve somewhat broader
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  adoption. But there's also another
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  possibility, which is they're actually in the year 2000, not
• 13:08
  2007. And maybe the core
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  infrastructure isn't here. Social barriers are too high.
• 13:15
  You need many more iterations of hardware before it actually
• 13:18
  makes sense for a regular consumer or it might never catch
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  on anyway. So with that in mind, let's go
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  through some of the things that I think are going to make or
• 13:24
  break the smart glasses. So the first one, as you can
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  imagine, is the price. It's about $800, which is quite
• 13:28
  actually respectable for an early adopter market.
• 13:31
  You know, the first iPhone launched at about $600.00, which
• 13:34
  is about $850 today after inflation.
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  And that very much positions it at the early adopter market.
• 13:41
  So it's slightly a bit too expensive for the mass
• 13:43
  consumers, but it's also not too expensive, which is where Apple
• 13:47
  Vision Pros landed at three and a half, $1000.
• 13:50
  But I put myself in broadly an early adopter.
• 13:52
  I would never pay three and a half, $1000 for the Apple Vision
• 13:55
  Pro even if I really wanted to try it.
• 13:58
  And historical precedent suggests that this pricing could
• 14:01
  work quite well. And importantly, Verizon is
• 14:04
  exploring whether to stock these glasses, and they actually
• 14:07
  announced that they will be. But whether or not they do what
• 14:10
  they did with early mobile phones, which is, you know,
• 14:12
  bundle it into packages that makes it a lot more affordable.
• 14:15
  Or for example, giving you some smart glasses when you get a
• 14:19
  specific type of contract. Because if they did that, that
• 14:22
  pricing would massively expand the total potential market for
• 14:25
  these glasses. The second factor I think is
• 14:26
  going to be the input mechanism. And, and when I say input
• 14:29
  mechanism, the way you interact with the smart glasses, because
• 14:33
  obviously a lot of the smartphone innovations really
• 14:35
  hinged on how people could engage and interact with the
• 14:38
  phone. So you went from, you know, T9
• 14:40
  keyboards to quality BlackBerry keyboards to then a touchscreen.
• 14:44
  And every breakthrough led to huge numbers of new use cases
• 14:49
  being possible. And I think the neuroband you
• 14:52
  could argue is potentially equivalent as that touchscreen.
• 14:56
  You know, Metro invested 4 years into building this out and
• 15:00
  reviewers have described it as feeling quite magical.
• 15:03
  You know, the ability to zoom in to cameras by rotating your
• 15:06
  wrist or navigate interfaces through sort of like small
• 15:10
  gestures is is really cool. And obviously the better it
• 15:14
  gets, the more likely people use it.
• 15:16
  But it's a really hard one to call.
• 15:17
  Anyway, factor 3 I'll go into as the App Store.
• 15:20
  You know, the, the iPhone was really powerful at launch, but
• 15:24
  it became like breakout successful through the App
• 15:28
  Store. You know, metas glasses launched
• 15:30
  with essentially no third party ecosystem and no ability for
• 15:34
  developers to build into it either.
• 15:36
  So that's going to be a problem. Now, Meta obviously understand
• 15:39
  intimately platform dynamics. It's literally their business
• 15:42
  model. And they're building developer
• 15:45
  interest gradually. So they've got partners like
• 15:47
  Microsoft, Disney, and and many, many more #4 obviously is social
• 15:51
  acceptance. You know, early mobile phone
• 15:53
  users were seen as rude. Like people talking loudly in
• 15:56
  public would get an eye roll. And over time, of course, as
• 16:00
  we've seen in at Scale, these norms do shift.
• 16:04
  Now everyone is very happy staring at their screen in
• 16:07
  public. And I think smart glasses are
• 16:09
  going to have to overcome something quite similar.
• 16:12
  And there's going to be unique privacy fears and concerns to
• 16:16
  deal with as well. You know, Meta learned quite
• 16:18
  well from Google Glasses and the giant fairy that was Google
• 16:21
  Glasses anyway. So they've gone for trying to
• 16:25
  style their glasses in line with Ray Bans.
• 16:28
  That's why the partnership exists, to provide that, I
• 16:31
  guess, social legitimacy that pure tech companies just can't
• 16:34
  match. And the glasses also include a
• 16:36
  very bright LED screen when recording.
• 16:38
  So again, trying to tell everyone around that these
• 16:41
  cameras are now recording right now.
• 16:42
  However, even with this LED system, if venues and important
• 16:48
  public spaces start to ban these glasses, you know, like schools,
• 16:51
  gyms, offices, hospitals, then it's just limiting all the
• 16:56
  potential times and places that these glasses can be used.
• 17:00
  And if all these areas become no glasses zone, then it's going to
• 17:03
  be hard to become a mainstream product.
• 17:05
  And then finally is competition. Obviously Apple is going to
• 17:08
  develop something similar and they always launch something a
• 17:10
  few years later as well. And obviously they've got
• 17:14
  probably the most perfect position to produce something
• 17:16
  good here because it's Apple. I think they've lost a bit of
• 17:19
  that magic over the years, but I'm sure they can pull something
• 17:21
  good out the bag. And Meta really need this giant
• 17:24
  developer market share before Apple enters because, you know,
• 17:28
  although Meta have that first mover advantage and it's
• 17:31
  building its ecosystem, Apple already have that built ready
• 17:36
  for them. It's going to be whether a Meta
• 17:38
  can really hit that ambitious number of 10 million units sold
• 17:40
  by 2026. And if it can do that, maybe it
• 17:43
  can establish itself as a real player.
• 17:55
  So yeah, Meta Ray Ban display represents either the dawn of, I
• 17:58
  guess, AI computing or an expensive reminder that being
• 18:02
  early and 1st to market often means being wrong on timing.
• 18:08
  And I guess the technology obviously largely works.
• 18:11
  The use cases make sense. The social barriers are probably
• 18:14
  lower than ever before, especially with the partnership
• 18:17
  with Ray Ban. But Meta do face huge challenges
• 18:20
  like how are you going to build up a big enough developer
• 18:22
  ecosystem? How are you going to bring in
• 18:24
  the right big players like Apple and bringing iMessage in?
• 18:27
  And the big question of whether people really want computers on
• 18:29
  their face. So right now, I'd probably put
• 18:33
  us in the BlackBerry era of smart glasses.
• 18:35
  So it's finely functional enough for some utility amongst early
• 18:38
  adopters, but probably still years away from an iPhone moment
• 18:42
  that drives mass adoption. And the question really is
• 18:45
  whether Meta can iterate fast enough to get there, or whether
• 18:48
  they're really just building brand and awareness or a bridge
• 18:53
  for Apple to walk over. My verdict then is I'm
• 18:56
  cautiously optimistic. These might not change
• 18:58
  everything, but they could prove that change is quite inevitable,
• 19:01
  and sometimes being early to an inevitable change is enough.
• 19:06
  Anyway, thank you for listening. I hope you found today's episode
• 19:08
  interesting and I'll see you next week.