I don't want cameras strapped to my head, I want a lightweight display I can wear unobtrusively and doesn't make anyone near me nervous (doubly so since this is from a company known for invading privacy), even if it's a fairly low resolution one. Version 1 could even be 4 lines of text and I'd still pay for it - I already wear glasses every waking moment of my life anyway.
Pair it with my phone, give me driving directions which don't require me to take eyes off the road. Remind me of things when I arrive home or get in the car. Let me read texts. Overlay that 9-minute pasta timer in a corner of my field of view until it runs out. Blink in a corner to remind me that my lawn sprinklers are still running, so I don't go to sleep forgetting to turn them off (ahem).
I'll probably learn to use a swype-style keyboard while keeping the phone in the pocket and looking ahead through the glasses.
Come on, I grew up awed at the HUDs of Robocop and Terminator, give me a damn HUD, it's 2023.
I mean, this is obviously where its going, but the tech isn't there yet without seriously compromising on some axis (looks, size/weight, etc) I think its a great way to get people used to the paradigm of smart glasses and further develop the other components that are already mature on phones (camera, compute, speakers, etc.)
Google Glass was released almost a decade ago, I'm not convinced the tech isn't there. I also had a RECON Mod Live HUD for my Snowboard Goggles which was released in 2011 which had a unit size not that far off from the Google Glass.
It's disappointing that in 2023 there isn't something even remotely close (or better) to tech that was available 10+ years ago in the case of the RECON Mod Live.
...which is why its available for the already chunky wayfarer frames and not the svelte Aviators.
Past camera spy glasses were so chunky as to be obvious if you know to look what to look for. Can't say how unobtrusive or obvious the lens is for the Metas but the Temples are not discernably thicker or different in appearance from non-enhanced Wayfarers.
Wishing they'd Add an inertial sensor making them quite useful for tort / crim evidentiary purposes.
A readier-to-access camera means I could take pictures I can't now, since by the time I get my phone out the moment has passed.
To me an always-on display in my glasses, on the other hand, seems like a ramp-up of screen-time-interruptions and very diminished gains compared to a phone or watch.
Cameras like this have been available for years. They're typically sold as "spy cameras", because that's how they're perceived. Amazon alone lists a few dozen models of various degrees reasonable appearance and features, most of them in the $40-$100 range.
This is old enough that at least one startup has already failed to get traction for trying to establish a standard to clip cameras onto glasses...
What you're paying for here is the Ray-Ban branding, not innovation.
sometimes audio is not enough, e.g. when driving motorbike/scooter in big city (Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur) audio navigation is not enough to on time figure out which lane ramp you have to use at some intersection.
Yeah, that’s just not what the product is. It’s not targeted at helping people navigate roads, it’s for giving creators a more seamless way of getting footage in their everyday life.
Meta spent a crazy amount of money hosting a giant party at VidCon (a YouTube/TikTok/Instagram focused convention) and I haven’t really seen them pushing these glasses anywhere else. Casey Neistat did a review on the first-gen version in the context of how it helped him film. This really seems like a tool for creators at this point, even if it may morph into something else later.
Well, the integration into social media is novel too. When I did a demo I signed into my account and when I filmed something it went directly as a post to my IG.
If there were more ability to do more editing and get access to the raw footage that would be helpful; I haven’t tested this version though so I don’t know what it does/doesn’t offer.
True, but the first version was garbage, the resolution was like 2007 Razr quality. I feel like the better image quality, battery life, and form-factor this gets, it will become a lot more compelling a product.
I would never have bought the last version, but with the image quality on this one it may be worth it (plus the call-related stuff, although I normally have AirPods with me).
how many "spy cameras" allow you to live stream? "the only thing" here is your lack of imagination. not that I'm a proponent of these devices, as they are on the verge of creepCentral, but i'm not going to make an outlandish comment about them "only" being branded.
Interesting - this is pretty insightful in terms of product market fit.
It seems more of a convenient GoPro POV camera form factor that allows more freedom from extra equipment (sunglasses versus some sort of helmet strap/chest strap) and less pre-planning.
I could also see some sort of application where the creator is live-streaming a concert or event to Instagram reels and getting feed back via the headphones from the internet audience on where to go/what to do next.
Definitely can see how it fits directly with FB/Insta in that it gets more people "creating" content for the rest of us (ergo more content to monetize for ads).
It would probably be pretty awesome at navigating roads too. I remember citibiking in nyc and basically having to memorize directions and street names, or constantly pull out my phone and figure out where i'm going. Having audio through the glasses would work great and still be able to hear your surroundings.
Imagine that while you're driving, a big line of text that you can't see through appears on your windshield.
Worse yet the text is opaque but you have to concentrate on it to read it.
All this would do is give drivers a false sense of security in your directions example. You'll be concentrating on the text regardless, meaning your concentration is off the road.
Even that autopilot sense where you drive your daily routine for 30 minutes and don't remember minutes 20 of it still has your subconscious aware of obstacles in the road, etc. This would require your concentration to be on the text. Whether you want it to or not.
HUDs like this are already common on fighter jets, and even some passenger aircraft, precisely so you don't have to look away to check gauges. Are you saying riding a motorcycle requires more concentration than flying an FA/18 Hornet?
In the jets, are all parts of the HUD always visible and they train to work around them as if it weren't part of the window but rather a permanent obstruction, or does the text pop up unexpectedly while they're flying?
> Are you saying riding a motorcycle requires more concentration than flying an FA/18 Hornet?
Are you saying that building strawmen is more important than the visibility of an FA/18 Hornet?
the BMW motorcycle HUD doesn't have text that pops up unexpectedly, as far as I can see from the demo video. quite the opposite: the HUD stays in one place, and it only displays speed and navigation info, and it doesn't seem very obstructing.
maybe we're talking about different smart glasses?
In that case yes I believe I envisioned it differently than you. If the text is correctly sized and in a box that's always there, where you expect information to be and doesn't block your view, I don't think that would be distracting.
Congratulations on shipping what looks like an incredibly challenging piece of hardware to design and manufacture. You rock. Things I couldn’t find on home page or FAQ:
* Are batteries built into the frames or is there a separate battery pack?
* What is the battery life?
* Why not commit to making an SDK available to people if there is no App Store?
* Are there any video samples showing what it’s recorded?
It is impossible to have a good display with a transparent lens, because you have to overlay the light that passes the lens with an even brighter light. Unless they find a way to dim shapes on the lenses, this will always be sub-optimal.
What will work is a camera on your VR device, that will give you a quasi-AR device, but those are still clunky and as you can see with the iGlasses they look a bit spooky from outside.
PS: added benefit that when I don’t pick up my phone to get to the camera constantly I conveniently miss the attention destroying notifications most times from other Meta products
PPS: Caveat: I live in a sunny location so sunglasses make sense most days.
It is extremely bizarre to advertise with typical Mixed Reality use cases (with display elements overlaid in your field of vision).
Is this actually true or do the people here who say "it lacks a display" mean something else? That it's not suitable for VR or non overlay applications?
I don't want cameras strapped to my head, I want a lightweight display I can wear unobtrusively and doesn't make anyone near me nervous (doubly so since this is from a company known for invading privacy), even if it's a fairly low resolution one. Version 1 could even be 4 lines of text and I'd still pay for it - I already wear glasses every waking moment of my life anyway.
Pair it with my phone, give me driving directions which don't require me to take eyes off the road. Remind me of things when I arrive home or get in the car. Let me read texts. Overlay that 9-minute pasta timer in a corner of my field of view until it runs out. Blink in a corner to remind me that my lawn sprinklers are still running, so I don't go to sleep forgetting to turn them off (ahem).
I'll probably learn to use a swype-style keyboard while keeping the phone in the pocket and looking ahead through the glasses.
Come on, I grew up awed at the HUDs of Robocop and Terminator, give me a damn HUD, it's 2023.
reply