- Meta Unveils $299 / £269 / AU$599 Smart Glasses (Meta Glasses) Designed with EssilorLuxottica
- They match the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses in practically all functions
- They add adjustable nose pieces and many design and color options.
“Turns out it’s pretty easy to make glasses that don’t look good,” chuckled Meta CTO and head of Reality Labs Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth shortly after unveiling a bumper crop of new Meta glasses, simply called Meta Glasses, all designed in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica.
Bosworth says the team is discussing “every gram, every quarter of a millimeter” in an effort to bring increasingly lighter, more comfortable and more fashionable AI glasses to market. With this foray into frame manufacturing with a brand a little less known than Ray-Ban, Meta brings new frames: Adventurer, Fury and Starfire Kylie. [Jenner] Edition: On the market at a somewhat surprising price: $299 / £269 / AU$599 (excluding recipes).
There is no one size or style that fits all when it comes to glasses, Ankit Brahmbhatt, senior product manager for AI glasses at Meta, told me while explaining some of the new frames. There are, he added, eight color combinations and 26 different style options.
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Ogling the Style Options
As I looked around the room at the Manhattan event space, I saw black, something like ivory, tortoiseshell, deep black, green, and deep maroon. Frames range from larger, almost square-looking frames to thinner, lighter frames. In fact, many of EssilorLuxottica’s frames are so relatively thin and light that you might miss the hidden cameras on the front and the slightly thicker stems to accommodate components and batteries, and mistake them for regular frames.
Kylie Jenner’s cat-eye frames are particularly attractive and I surprisingly found them halfway decent.
Brahmbhatt told me that Meta worked closely with Jenner to develop the design, adding signature touches like a small gem on the frame, a mirror on the case, and even Kylie Jenner’s voice on Meta AI.
There are new structural changes to Essilor Luxottica frames. The nose piece adjusts with a push to three different positions, the stems can be bent at the ends (Bosworth noted that the wires are coated with a type of cellulose plastic), and the stems actually flex outward. I tried on almost every style I could find and they were all pretty comfortable.
One of the biggest changes, however, is the addition of a small button behind the traditional Meta AI glasses button that you can use to capture a photo or start a video: It’s a small Meta AI summon button, and I used it interchangeably to say, “Hey, Meta.”
More and better AI
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This is also the first set of Meta AI glasses to feature a Meta AI system backed by the company’s more robust Muse Spark models, which provide more conversational voice, better context awareness, and the ability to tap into the zeitgeist when checking social media (at one point I asked Meta AI if there were conversations online about fake food, and it confirmed that many were talking about it on social media).
I tested the new Meta AI in a few scenarios and it cleverly identified what I was looking at (I could hear it take a photo before analysis), launched a music playlist based on my surroundings, and translated Arabic lyrics for me.
It’s notable that all of this costs less than $299 (Ray-Ban Meta frames start at $379) and without compromising 3K video recording quality, 12MP photos, microphones, array or speakers; but we’re still relatively early in the wearable AI space.
Do it right and do it safely
The design is “really important if you want people to use them as everyday driving glasses,” said Meta’s head of industrial design, Peter Bristol, who joined Bosworth on stage and answered some questions from reporters.
Perhaps in a nod to how thick and oversized AI glasses can look, the pair talked about how they made subtle changes to the designs, slimming down the frames or simply making them appear thinner, for example by adding a bezel along the top edge of the frames, near the forehead.
Good design means less friction, which Bristol believes can help with AI adoption.
For Meta, the goal is to “reach every corner of the market,” Bosworth said, but that approach comes with risks.
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When asked about growing privacy concerns about these glasses (there have been reports of people using them to illegally photograph women and have even tampered with the glasses to turn off the “I’m Filming You” LED light), Bosworth acknowledged these issues, but reminded us that Meta had “pioneered putting LEDs in glasses” and talked about the anti-tamper technology they put in the Gen 2 Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. But he added that it is “a game of cat and mouse.”
As for what the future holds, I pointed out to Bosworth and Bristol that while they have many styles now, not everyone wears or wants to wear glasses. What about smart contacts?
“Absolutely, that’s the most important thing for the design team,” Bristol said, adding, “We’re thinking about and testing other potential avenues, but it’s a complicated space, so glasses are the focus for us.”
Bosworth agreed with the premise of my question and admitted that he doesn’t wear glasses, but is happy to wear Meta AI glasses “because they add a lot of value, but I’m aware that I’m doing it.
“The design team is absolutely captivated by this question. What are the other ways we can offer this capability to people who don’t wear glasses?”
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