Meta’s smart glasses are pretty great; in fact, they’ve been one of my favorite gadgets released in the past few years. The Ray-Ban and Oakley styles are beautiful, the audio and camera quality are solid, and the AI assistive tools are genuinely useful when I travel.
But I rarely wear mine anymore — and I’m considering picking up some ‘dumb’ sunglasses as we head into the UK’s summer. I don’t really want to wear them anymore after a few recent Meta developments, and it turns out I’m not alone.
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One battle after another
It’s been a tough few months for Meta. The realization it has squandered its XR lead, and set fire to billions of dollars, and killed the metaverse dream before it began has seen it effectively shelve its Horizon Worlds platform in VR.
Next, a joint investigation by Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten revealed to many that their private glasses-recorded videos might not be so private. Instead, any video, audio, or photo recordings taken using hands-free voice controls have been shared with Meta’s servers and possibly reviewed by contractors, with reviewed content apparently including credit card details, people using the bathroom, and couples having sex.
Most recently, Meta has been found guilty of exploiting addiction in teens to grow its social media platforms. Meta has expressed plans to appeal the landmark loss, but it’s a serious blow to Meta no matter the end result — especially with thousands of similar trials remaining (and if the ruling sticks, I expect even more will follow). In the court of public perception, it’s another arrow in the anti-social-media movement’s quiver.
On top of all this, you have AI glasses that seriously step over the line — such as boasting completely secretive recording abilities — price hikes for recent smart glasses that make them less appealing from a value perspective, and general AI frustrations — as AI struggles to live up to the hype while creating component shortages and contributing to the aforementioned cost hikes.
I’m not surprised that an anti-smart glasses movement has finally formed, even if it took a few years to kick off.
My own hype has waned
I’ve previously been a massive smart glasses fan, but while I still think there’s something useful to the tech, I’m also increasingly frustrated by it.
Price hikes with not much in the way of substantial upgrades to warrant them are one, and the enshitification of Meta’s AI app is another — it used to just be a glasses control center, which was ideal. The all-in-one Meta AI platform is too bloated with tools I don’t want or need.
Plus, while I knew Meta’s AI policy meant it could see images and videos taken with the specs, my impression was these would be those used by features like look and ask — where the glasses use the camera to get context for a question I have like “what’s the name of this landmark” or “translate this sign” — I for one didn’t realize hands-free voice controls to start the camera also shared footage with Meta.
This feels extra frightening next to Meta’s plans to have your glasses camera always on. The argument is that this will help you remember where you left your keys or identify people you’ve met before (things I’m terrible at), but it simply sounds like a privacy nightmare, especially as all this data will be sent to the Meta AI cloud to process the AI functions rather than being kept private on the device.
The end result of all these issues is that unless I have a pair to test for a review, I probably won’t be wearing my Meta Ray-Bans on the regular anymore — I’m going to invest in a pair of regular transitions instead.
A glimpse at the future?
Do these woes spell the end of smart glasses before they’ve truly arrived?
Of course not. While some of us are losing faith, clearly, this is a field many tech companies want to explore, and changes could win me back.
Android XR, while headed up by Google, which itself isn’t a bastion of privacy (and whose platform YouTube was also successfully sued for social media addiction), might offer some privacy solutions if it uses your phone for more on-device AI processing. This approach is much more private than Meta’s server approach and could eliminate some major data protection concerns.
Better regulation would also be a massive help. Forcing glasses to always make it obvious they are filming, imposing privacy safeguards, or tweaking regulations so folks don’t abuse their tech in public and private spaces are a few possible avenues, and would make it easier to punish companies and individuals that step over the line.
For now, however, we’re in the AI and smart glasses wild west. Hopefully things will change for the better, but right now I’m worried we might be headed the way of Google Glass after all.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
