Meta’s Ray-Ban Glasses Deserve More Attention

You might not know it from the news of the past few days, but weather-wise we’re in the dog days of August. And that’s an ideal time to try Meta Platforms’ Ray-Ban smart glasses (no one wants to walk around wearing sunglasses in the winter gloom). Based on my personal experience, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is onto something when he predicts these eyeglasses will be a “really big product.”

I wore the glasses last week while on vacation and found them a good substitute for earbuds (for making phone calls and listening to music or podcasts), as well as a convenient way to take photos. The artificial intelligence assistant, in contrast, was completely useless. While looking at my Siberian husky, I asked what kind of dog I was looking at, and Meta AI said there was no dog. The AI will presumably improve—but really it’s the audio and video capabilities of the glasses that matter to me, not the AI assistant.