- The problem with mirror selfies is
that there's always phones in them, psych.
This is 2023 and we've got smart glasses, eh.
(upbeat music)
Smart glasses didn't disappear when Google Glass crashed
and burned 10 years ago.
We've also seen a lot of other attempts
from companies big and small,
but not a single one has ever made it to the mainstream
in the way that smart watches, phones, or tablets have.
I've tried a ton of different smart glasses and for each,
I've had a hard time imagining
the average person wanting a pair.
That's not the case for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
I could very clearly picture who would want a pair of these
because I've had multiple people in my life tell me
that they plan on buying one, and that has never happened.
It makes me think that we've hit a turning point
with consumer smart glasses.
So let's get right into it.
Ha ha. See, it's recording.
(Victoria laughing)
In many ways, these glasses are
what the Stories should have been.
Instead of one mic, we now have five.
The audio is also improved with less leakage,
better base, and support for spatial audio.
The battery also lasts longer,
and the charging case itself is slimmer, more stylish,
and now has an LED indicator light.
I get about three to four hours of heavy usage,
and closer to a whole workday
if I use them more intermittently.
I ran my battery all the way down to 15% on my commute here.
It's been less than an hour,
and I'm all the way back up to 100%.
It's also been about a week,
and I haven't needed to charge this case once.
These are solid updates, but none of it is revolutionary.
But what I think Meta's done here is nail the execution,
which in turn addresses some of the key issues
that have held smart glasses back.
The most important thing
about Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses is they look good.
I look good. That's it.
More so than any other kind of gadgets,
smart glasses have to look stylish.
Humanity is vain.
If eyes are the windows to the soul,
of course you want your glasses
to be a fetching pair of curtains.
Ray-Ban is great for that
because it's an iconic fashion brand,
and Wayfarers are about as close
to a universally flattering frame as you can get.
If you don't look good in them, you're not gonna wear 'em.
The same goes if they're too conspicuous.
Part of the reason Google Glass didn't work
was the futuristic design made you stick out in a bad way.
These Meta glasses are way more discreet.
I wore these on my commute, to a wedding.
- Hold up, hold up.
- In the car, on my walks, on a run.
Nobody looked at me twice.
Meta sent me these as a pair of sunglasses,
but you can also get them in clear and transition lenses,
which is more useful,
unless you only plan on using these while you're outside.
If you need a prescription,
you can get them through Ray-Ban,
but they're limited to negative six
to plus four prescriptions.
If you have worse eyesight, like me,
you're probably going to have to wear them with contacts,
or take them to your local optometrist.
But like I said, you have many options.
And while it's pricey, it's about what you can expect to pay
for a pair of nice Ray-bans, unless you go to Korea.
That's my family's hack.
We get all of our glasses in Korea.
So much cheaper, even with the plane flight.
Okay, I'm gonna put these back up
because I'm not gonna wear these, I'm indoors.
I look like a gibroni.
But anyway, another big problem
with smart glasses has been timing.
Meta is not reinventing the wheel here,
and I think a lot of that is that Meta's glasses are coming
at a time when the technology is finally advanced enough
to deliver a good overall experience.
But don't take my word for it.
I'm going to throw it over
to our resident camera and headphone expert, Becca,
to talk about what it's like to use these
to create and consume content.
Becca's section. (whooshing)
- What up? Good to see you, bud.
So when I first got the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses,
which is a bad name, but pretty decent product,
I thought of them as a camera
that happened to be mounted on glasses.
But the more I used them, the more I realized
that they were actually a pretty decent alternative
to Bluetooth headphones,
that just so happened to have a camera.
I'm Becca. Let's talk about it.
Hi Peter. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
Any depth of field to these bad boys?
Ooh, tiny lens, tiny sensor.
I'm gonna say maybe not.
An open ear design for headphones is almost always going
to have less bass presence, and that is certainly true here,
but in almost every other way,
these make great wireless speakers.
It's been a while, but let's do a mic test.
Of course, we are starting with the GOAT,
the wired Apple headphone that now comes in USB-C.
I mean, this is the gold standard of mics.
It's right by your mouth.
And I'm so excited to hear how mics
that are mounted by your nose sound.
Let's get right to it. (Becca snapping)
Okay, Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
They have five mics in them, including,
I think it's two mics right here on the nose bridge,
which means it is really close to my mouth.
Everyone I've talked to says I sound great,
but do I sound as good as (Becca snapping)
the second gen AirPod Pros, baby,
which now come in USB-C, let's go.
I mean, tons of people are still using these on calls,
but I've also been impressed with this mic.
These are the Nothing Ear 2s,
they are the earbuds I honestly use the most.
They do still have Bluetooth dropouts,
especially when I'm down in the city,
but overall, they've been great headphones.
So how did they compare to the.
But wait, these sound so good.
This is incredible.
I'm gonna be wearing these on calls.
I just love it so much, except for the fact
that my M1 MacBook Pro only recognizes these as headphones
and doesn't recognize the mic.
So something to fix on the back end there.
Anyway, back to the rest of the video, I'm impressed.
Outside of the very usable mics,
the tap controls are some of the most responsive I've used.
I haven't had a missed touch or a delay
in the five days that I've been using them.
And sliding up or down for volume, it's always the answer.
I also haven't had any problems
with Bluetooth connections or dropouts,
and the glasses pair seamlessly and quickly
with my iPhone 12 Pro as soon as I take them outta the case.
All around, I'm impressed,
so impressed that it has led me to be
that person who's wearing sunglasses inside.
All right, so the camera, the very small lens,
and even smaller sensor,
provides surprisingly usable footage.
These are new signs.
I used to just call this thing the big loop, but now.
Besides solid color reproduction,
and mostly crisp details in good light,
I was the most surprised with the stabilization,
audio quality, and high and low light balance.
When we walk, our brain does a lot of work
to stabilize our vision.
So inherently, a camera mounted to our head
is not going to look nearly as smooth as what we see.
But Meta has done a decent job of creating footage
that doesn't look like a bobbing mess.
There is, of course, some bob and some sway,
and you can see the work the system is putting in
to stabilizing the image in the small details.
But for the most part, and especially on a small screen
such as a phone, the footage is not nauseating.
Welcome back.
Another feature that sells the POV perspective
is the glasses' ability to record using its five mics,
which then can create spatial audio.
You'll wanna wear headphones for this,
but pay attention to where people's voices are coming from
as my family tries to decide which side of the aisle
to sit on at a wedding.
Do they do that anymore? - Isn't that an old tradition?
- [Guest] I don't know, I mean,
that's what I was gonna do, but.
- [Becca] It's not like we're gonna get in trouble.
- Yeah. - No, you're gonna get.
- There's no chairs over there.
And lastly, the camera transitions smoothly
from light to dark situations.
When walking into a store, for example,
footage seamlessly maintains proper exposure without notice,
much like our eyes do.
So for a camera that films from an eye's perspective
this is all great news.
The problem is it's not quite your eye's perspective,
and I've had a lot of trouble framing for this lens.
I never really knew where the center of the frame was,
which led to my hand either being not in frame,
or not centered, and then my hat,
which sometimes made its way into the top of the frame,
was also never centered, which just kind of drives me nuts.
And a live view from the native app,
I think would help a little bit with learning the framing,
but for now, opening Instagram
and previewing from the livestream view is doing the trick.
So on paper, these glasses read as a decent camera
in the form of sunglasses, but in practice,
the framing difficulties led me to just take my phone out
and get the shot I wanted more often than not.
And I found myself wearing them
because they were a solid set of Bluetooth speakers instead.
In specific situations where you want
both of your hands in the frame,
and you're really going for that POV angle,
think riding a bike, driving a boat,
I mean, this is exactly the camera I would choose,
and the great mics are a cherry on top.
Now, Meta, your next challenge is going to be figuring out
how to cover this lens when you don't want to use it,
because being the person
with a lens constantly facing out is,
I don't know, kinda weird feeling.
Anyway, back to you, V.
- I co-sign everything Becca just said.
To that, I'm just gonna add that through this process,
I've learned that I tilt my head a lot
because so many of my photos came out at Dutch angles,
or with my bangs ruining the shot.
I also really enjoyed capturing candid videos of my cats.
Normally, if they see my phone come out,
they either hide, refuse to look at the camera,
or they just get really weird about being filmed.
Which brings me to my second point about timing.
For better or worse, we're at a point in our culture
where everybody is filming
and documenting their lives all the time,
and that's kind of normal.
Google Glass pissed people off.
Folks felt like they were a gross invasion of privacy,
to the point where the devices got ripped off people's faces
and were banned from some public places.
Fast forward 10 years, and I can't even step outside
without ending up as an extra
in someone else's digital memories.
There are exceptions, but I'll bet, thanks to smartphones,
you are a lot more used to the idea
of cameras being everywhere.
But the thing about smart glasses is
that they don't come with the same cultural cues as phones.
Your image of smart glasses is probably shaped
by Tony Stark, James Bond, or other spies and sci-fi flicks.
Shout out to Eggsy, I think he would rock these pretty well.
Meanwhile, if I hold up my phone like this or like this,
you know what I'm doing.
If I have these on and I'm doing this,
you might just think I'm adjusting my glasses
when really I'm taking a photo.
The glasses have an LED capture light,
which is meant to alert folks around you
that you're taking a photo or video.
This time around, Meta says it's added a pulsing pattern
to be more obvious,
but the jury is out on how effective it is.
Indoors, it can be pretty noticeable, but not always.
I polled a bunch of coworkers and friends,
and it was a mixed bag.
Outdoors, well, I literally have video
of my spouse saying they couldn't see it.
Whenever I filmed my commutes, however,
no one ever did notice.
The audio cues when you take a photo or video,
other people might not hear them.
Like, let's do this here.
If you hear this now, it's because we're in a quiet studio.
I've got mics around me.
On your commute, maybe not.
There's a lot of loud noise going around.
(shutter clicking) (electronic booping)
In the companion app, Meta has tips about etiquette
and reminds you to respect people's privacy.
That's nice, but barring a more obvious LED,
glass holes are gonna use these devices however they please.
And for the rest of us, it introduces awkward situations.
For example, I went to a wedding this past weekend.
That's an event where it makes natural sense
to wear something like this.
But at the same time, did my friend want me
to record footage when it's not obvious
to other guests what I'm doing?
I ended up asking permission,
which was also kind of a funny thing to explain.
And it was a great experience.
I got to be present and fully enjoy the moment
and still give my friends some extra footage
of their special day, which by the way,
she was very happy about because they were good quality.
But I wouldn't have felt the need to ask permission
if it was just my phone.
Is it okay for you to wear these to a concert
and film what's going on there?
What do you do
if a person notices you're wearing these glasses
while you're in a public restroom?
Was I a creep for filming my commutes
without disclosing that to my fellow commuters?
Are wearable cameras an inherent invasion of privacy,
or could they also be a safety measure?
I had a really interesting conversation with a coworker
who half wanted these because, if they ever got attacked,
well, they could just grab footage as evidence.
Because while this is the age of creators,
it's also the age of body cams
and using phone footage when you feel threatened.
So say tomorrow, everyone has a pair of these.
Am I gonna be acting different
when I see a lot of people wearing sunglasses,
knowing that one of them may be smart in this way?
The idea freaks me out.
But realistically speaking, I'm not sure I'm going to care.
I mean, that's the nature of turning points, right?
They bring up all these questions
that we don't have answers for,
and we just won't have those answers
until we have the same social, cultural cues
for these as we do for phones.
Do I think everyone will be sporting a pair
of these in two months?
Eh, I doubt it.
I'm pretty sure this is something that will mostly appeal
to content creators, techies,
and people just tired of strapping GoPros to their heads.
But before these, all of my cumulative experiences
with smart glasses, they made me a hardcore skeptic.
But now I know multiple people who have ordered a pair,
simply because the tech has improved
to the point where they think it'll help them
either use their phone less or replace their headphones.
I myself am tempted to swap out these lenses
for a pair of prescription transitions,
and that is something I never would've considered before.
But I mean, they're high quality, they look nice.
The photos and videos are great.
And I mean, privacy concerns aside,
have you considered how cute my cats are?
I mean, seriously, look at them.
Petey and Pablo, those are my cat's names.
♪ Secret agent man do do do do ♪
Like you're just a spy.
You're just a spy, that's all it is.