Earlier this week, I attended meta Connect and had a chance to go hands-on with the Meta Ray-Ban Display, the newest set of smart glasses from Meta. The defining features is a display in the lenses, and work with a neural wrist strap to translate small gestures into controls to navigate the interface.
I only had a few minutes with the Ray-Ban Display, but came away largely impressed. The screen is bright and crisp, and while there's a learning curve, the hand gestures felt very intuitive. However, there's a few things I'd want to try with them first to really see if they're really worth the $800 investment. Here are the five things I'm most interested in trying with the Meta Ray-Ban Display.
Turn-by-turn directions
One of my least favorite things about navigating somewhere unfamiliar with my phone is that I'm constantly looking at its screen to see if I'm going the right direction. While you can use one of the best wireless earbuds or even meta's smart glasses to pass along guidance from your phone, I'm looking forward to having it in the glasses themselves.
According to meta, the Ray-Ban Display will launch with pedestrian turn-by-turn walking directions in select cities, and will expand this feature over time. My hope is that, in addition to voice guidance, the glasses will also show arrows or some other visual indicator of which way to turn.
Video calls
This was one of the demo fails at meta Connect, so I can't wait to see how it actually works. If someone calls you via Whatsapp or Messenger, you'll be able to see their face in the Ray-Ban Display's screen, and they'll be able to see what you're looking at via the glasses' camera. (Of course, this will mean that they won't be able to see you, unless you're looking at a mirror.)
I can see this feature being handy if you want to, say, livestream your kid's recital to a relative who can't attend, or get help from your mom if you're trying to prepare a meal. Otherwise, your callers might be miffed that they can't see your face.
Live captions and translation
I think one of the best uses for AI on mobile devices is live translation. Having a universal translator at the ready is really helpful when you're traveling for a new country.
The Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses have had live translation in them for a while (they are getting more languages via an update), but the Ray-Ban Display takes it a step further, by displaying the translated text in front of you.
In addition, they can also be used to help those who have trouble hearing, by showing live captions of the person talking. (It also works for ad-hoc subtitles in movies and TV shows). I tried the live captions in my demo, but really want to see how the other functions work in the real world.
Typing
In terms of functionality, the Ray-Ban Display's Neural Band is as important as the screen itself. Otherwise, navigating the display would be a really tedious affair.
The Neural Band wraps around your wrist, interprets muscle movements you make with your fingers, and translates them into commands to move around the display.
In my demo, the things I tried worked pretty well: For example, If I was in the music app, I could pinch my fingers and rotate my wrist to adjust the music volume. I was surprised at how quickly it responded.
However, I think the real test will be with typing. When using the Ray-Ban Display's chat apps, you'll be able to tap your fingers on pretty much any surface to type out a message. Zuckerberg claimed he could get up to 30 words per minute, so while you're not going to use these glasses to write the next Great American Novel, it could turn the Displays into a very effective communications platform.
I've tried my share of virtual keyboards over the years — none of which have been great — so I really want to see how well it performs on the glasses.
And, as someone who likes playing the piano, I'm hoping a developer can come up with another sort of virtual keyboard, so I could practice my Beethoven and Brubeck.
Weight and Comfort
During his presentation, Zuckerberg stressed that one of the pillars for all of Meta's smart glasses is that they had to be comfortable to wear for long periods of time. More so than meta's other smart glasses, the Ray-Ban Display are meant to be a wearable computer that you use all day long — or at least until their 6-hour battery needs recharging.
To that end, the Displays all come with transition lenses, and you can even get them with prescription lenses. But it also comes down to weight and fit. At 69 grams, they're significantly heavier than the Ray-Ban Meta gen 2 (51 grams), and they have a chunkier frame. By comparison, my favorite non-smart sunglasses, the Smith Lowdown, weigh a scant 45 grams.
So, I really want to see if they do feel comfortable for me to wear as long as I would my regular glasses.
Outlook
The Meta Ray-Ban Display go on sale on September 30, and could be on their way to being the best smart glasses around. However, a lot rides on how well all of their new features perform — not just the ones I highlighted here, but especially Meta AI.
I suspect that using the AI on the glasses won't be the primary reason people pick them up; things like voice calling, music, photography and other tasks we primarily use our phones for will be the more popular apps on the Ray-Ban Display.
Of course, it will all come dowdn to the comfort of the glasses themselves; no one's going to use them if they can't stand wearing them. We hope to try out the Ray-Ban Display more fully, so rest assured we'll try all these features out — and more.
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