HN Reader

1) “Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta", which basically makes glasses defunct.

2) “voice transcripts and stored audio recordings are otherwise stored for up to one year to help improve Meta’s products.”

[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/658602/meta-ray-ban-privacy-po...

I have been reading the book called Apple in China and hardware is so hard. 30 hours of battery with wireless communication (I wonder if this is BLE 6.0 alone) between the EMG + Wave guide tech is not easy.

This is the second long term bet by meta that is panning out, the first being investing in long horizon AI projects(pytorch and a bunch of AI models), though that org has had rough times it did yield something good.

Unfortunately, Meta, and Zuckerberg, have been involved in far too much malfeasance. I just can't ethically justify buying a product from them again. I'm hoping that viable competitors become available, but it's going to be hard to compete with Meta's investment, especially on the HCI front.

Insanely cool, and awesome to see a viable wave guide device.

It's so cool that it might outweigh my reluctance to strap facebook to my face.

These glasses are just "annotated reality" rather than full AR, with just 1 small display; think Google Glass but 100x more discreet. So discreet input and output on a device with a camera.

Why do I need to pay $800 for this? I already paid a grand to have a phone disrupt my every waking moment!

With traditional cameras, feature phones, and smartphones, if someone wanted to be creepy with the camera, they'd have to point the device at someone, which tended to look exactly like they are using the camera.

(IIUC, some countries even required a shutter sound, for anti-creepy reasons, when the pointing of the phone wasn't enough warning.)

Now, the wearer of the glasses spy camera just has to look in the general direction that creepiness should be sprayed.

The creepiness isn't even that of the wearer; it could also be that of the tech company.

Is this going to end up another Google "Glassholes" situation, with the wearers shunned?

Can you imagine trying to talk to someone face to face, but they are giving you a blank stare as random notifications and tiktok videos are being beamed inbetween their eyeballs and you.

Meta seems like one of the few large tech companies where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place.

And also, I hereby ban them in our office. Thou shalt not wear spyware while looking at the screens that contain our company IP.

I will never buy a Meta product again, the brand reputation is lower than dirt to me. Even ignoring all the other awful things Meta does, they have no reason to require a verified account to play two local-only games that I already paid for. No matter how cool glasses like these may look, I have no trust that the brand will not suddenly demand more money or information from me to continue using a product I have already purchased.

I use them for taking videos when I'm out and for listening to music without putting on headphones or earphones. While it is not the best at anything, it is definitely capable of doing a lot of things well enough and that is what matters a lot of times.

The tech is impressive, but people are already getting concerned about excessive screen time via zombie doomscrolling. Moving it from the pocket to literally in people's face will only worsen it.

And by Meta of all companies, with concerning privacy practices and of course motivated to hold your attention to serve you more ads.

The live captioning with directional audio seems like it could be a huge win for people who are hard of hearing, especially given the display is invisible so is much more natural to use in real life than say a smart phone or a VR headset with passthrough.

Another thing that's cool is the neural band. It looks like it's a more robust and flexible implementation of what Apple is doing with hand tracking.

But generally the idea that you can interact with the glasses silently with your hands to your side while wearing what effectively looks like a normal pair of glasses is incredible. I think this this is the first time we've seen an implementation of AR in which a large group of people could see value in it.

Also the fact Meta was first to market with a solid implementation of AR and not Apple or Google is also notable. I think I would have doubted their ability to pull something like this off a few years ago.

also: looking for a good discussion forum where people are interested in technological advancement

I had an Oculus CV1 in 2019 but sold it when it became mandatory to migrate to a Meta account.

A reminder, users cannot opt out of current Meta Ray Bans data recording/storage/training if you actually want to use them as smart glasses.

You won't blend in wearing the Oakleys, but they look like what they are, which is an insane mirrorshades cyberpunk HUD, and if the wearer can own that they could actually look kind of sick.

Of course, I'm technically underwhelmed and unimpressed by what I've seen of the actual technology, but that's hardly the most important thing.

But the wrist/hand control is the thing that impressed me the most in today's release. I'd hope for this to go far beyond just the glasses.

spy state actor's wet dream comes even more true with this, even more than with already overly de-privaciced public spaces.

Why this wasn't written as: "Meta debuted the next.."? You know what?! I have always felt that Meta is owned, managed, and totally controlled by Zuck alone! No board members and no investors.

I have been following Zuck in his Metaverse journey and more specifically, in his interviews like the one with The Verge and he is always speaking with this tone: "This is how I see it", "My vision is..", "I plan to make it this way..", like he is the only employee in his company.

If it was Apple that released this product, we would read something like: "Cupertino: Apple debuted the next exciting.." which reflects the vision, strategy, and innovation made by the company as whole and not a single person. I don't recall that Steve Jobs had behaved like this even in his prime time.

Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/21/apple-smart-glasses-eve... or some other Mark Gurman leak

I wonder how the etiquette will evolve for people with legitimate needs to use them in polite company.

Imagine seeing everyone with glasses with suspicion because you don’t know if they’re filming you, reading notifications or actually conversing with you.

Now I won't hesitate, although the in-lens display is fantastically intriguing, I'm wondering about safety concerns like: walking down the sidewalk or crossing a street, at the wheel of a car(!), work related issues, etc. Gee, I guess I am hesitating! It will be interesting to see a study on how these glasses change our brains as it deals with this new paradigm.

Only step beyond this is neural implants putting purchasing decisions directly into your grey matter.

The Apple Vision Pro is AR glasses at the Apple Newton evolutionary stage, an early smart PDA (Yes I'm the sucker that bought both at their respective launch, 3 decades apart).

The Meta Ray-Ban Display is AR glasses at the Windows Mobile/Blackberry stage.

Apple will likely swoop in and launch the final refined version of the AR glasses (thin, 8 hour battery, eye gaze control, retina based authentication, tethered to the iPhone, Apple AI, etc), when the tech is available at a decent price point for mainstream launch.

And yes, being the unrepentant Apple FanBoi, will be buying the Apple iGlass at the launch.

Why they shouldn't be allowed ---

1.The glasses have cameras and microphones capable of recording people nearby often without their knowledge (e.g. the recording indicator can be subtle or blocked, “GhostDot” stickers are being sold to block the LED indicator light so others won’t see when recording is happening)

2. As I remember Meta has changed its privacy policy so that voice recordings are stored in the cloud (up to one year) and “Hey Meta” voice-activation with camera may be enabled by default, meaning more frequent analysis of what the camera sees to train AI models.

3.The possibility that anytime someone might be recording you wearing glasses that look like ordinary sunglasses can create a chilling effect: people may feel uneasy, censor themselves, avoid public spaces, etc.

Lastly, I don't put it past humanity to actually be interested in seeing ad overlays throughout the world because it's just ... cool, at least at first.

Killer feature for me:

I'd like to see that 3D marker in the world that I need to walk towards like a video game.

The fact that it’s FB that can see through your eyes doesn’t make this any better.

Right… so having notifications in your face ALL DAY is going to _help_ you stay connected to the real world.

People nowadays want to disconnect from technology more, not to have it even closer.

They had to clarify it was “consenting” since it’s the opposite of their normal default.

(You also have to wonder how consensual it really was.)

- are prescription glasses available for display ? I guess not ? - these glasses need to be online, I guess they do so with a phone and bluetooth connection nearby ? So that's the glasses, the band and the phone, oh and the glasses case, seems a lot to carry. - pedestrian navigation seems to be rolled out per city, so it's not like having gmaps available right out of the box.

Just never in a million years.

And it freaks me out a little.

Note, not the end though. That's more Neuralink.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_cdkpazjI&ab_channel=TheCG...

The thing is, it's honestly hard to imagine doing anything cool with them. I think this has less to do with hardware limitations and more to do with vendor restrictions.

I think Meta is fundamentally incapable of making anything cool. Hence why they had to partner with Ray-Ban to make these glasses rather than making their own. I think Meta's failure to realize their version of the metaverse had to do with their inability to recognize coolness and taste as much as anything else. I think any and all apps Meta ships with these glasses are cursed to be a mediocre experience.

I think Apple could do a better job but at the end of the day I think the most interesting (not necessarily best) would be ones with the most developer freedom.

As a practical matter, this feels too Orwellian. I don't want necessarily want to emit that much information (he said, looking at his Galaxy smart phone and watch) all the time.

Possibly I'm trending Luddite in my dotage.

regina dugan's f8 keynote 8 years ago

where they announced they were working on a 'haptic vocabulary' for a skin interface as well as noninvasive brain scanning technologyu\

(A) Are we going to consume food prepared by a human so incompetent that he needs Live AI to tell him what ingredient to put and how much ... and that too an AI so unreliable that it can't tell whether the bowl is empty, let alone what ingredients are in it.[1]

In what world is this a sane marketing proposition?

(B) Distracted driving due to smartphones is at least detectable -- how do we escape distracted driving because of smart glasses?

When people eventually crash cars or walk into traffic or fall into pits -- no tech company will so much as acknowledge that the tech they are pushing so hard might have something to do with it.

Who should take the lead on saying: wait a minute we need some common sense boundaries around this ... some ground rules around responsible use of technology.

[1] Failed demo of Live AI - https://x.com/ns123abc/status/1968469616545452055

"I ABSOLUTELY love your mission, and I envision everyone wearing these! It's cool if I use them during the interview, I feel this will help me understand the end user experience."

2: Users get to look like the nerd emoji

3: The rest seems like creepy-spying-on-friends-or-strangers kinds of things. Any constructive suggestions? I'm willing to be enlightened...

I’d use it for so many things. Cooking, repairs, maybe even motivating me to do yard work? A full time AI assistant is just such a crazy sci fi idea.

I love the product but hate all the privacy issues and just not being in control of such an intimate device.

Not only that... I started to think about ways I could use this!! I pictured myself using them... I visualized it all, and then remembered when I felt this way when the Ipod was released, and then again, when the first Pebble watch was launched or maybe even, the first kindle.

Although there's going to be some strong competition in the next 1-2 years with Apple, as we all know, the "thin phone" is nothing about the phone, and all about their pathway towards wearables...

I must have this. This is a game changer. WOW!

Well that and it being a meta product.

(Sorry about the google search link. Apple and Google go out of their way to hide the url when doing searches on Google from mobile Safari.)

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=046dc2c9c0fa6748&udm=2...

This is what no one else can seem to understand. The iPad was created in Apple's labs before the iPhone. But Jobs and other staff made the decision to wait several years to launch the phone until the tech caught up to the ambition. They had a certain ascetic they wanted in addition to the hardware and it required time.

In this case, it looks like opposite. The tech is finally getting there, but the design team has no sense of making a daily wear product that people should reasonably want to wear. If I imagine a large population of people wearing these daily, it's going to look like middle and high school students from the 70s and 80s in yearbook photos.

What's awful is that I'm one of the most fashion ignorant people I know. I wear the same type of shirts and shoes because they're comfortable not stylish. And my glasses are as minimal frame as possible because I don't want a large mass of matter sitting on my face. Even that being said, this product just reminds me of my buddy's army photo of him wearing the Army issued glasses. Not good.

Magic Leap.

The default has become to get consumers locked in as much as possible, be for your data or money exploitation or both (check the Slack thread for a non the non-profit HackClub).

If you pay 800 dollars for this device and a year after they ask you for your driver's license (as for the top comment). Are you willing to waste those 800 dollars you payed for it or will you upload any sensitive docs demanded from them? Or if they decide to phase it out early because there is no real adoption, will you get your money back? Will they make the device open so it can still be used by their "owners"?

So the way I see it: you give big money to already super rich companies. You also give them your data. You are forced to comply their rules and in even in any of those cases when they decide you shouldn't use it anymore they deprecate it and keep the device close. No, thanks.

The bottom line is this: do extensive research before making a single penny leave your wallet to try to minimize getting fucked up as much as you can.

We should educate as many people surrounding us as possible so they can make good or informed purchase decisions as well.

This should also be taught to children so from an early age they can understand very well that privacy and data has proven to be extremely profitable to virtually any company out there.

No? Then no thank you.

If these things are now to the point of realistic adoption, I'd be interested in getting a pair, specifically to record and get on demand info/maps/AI integration maybe on runs, hikes, and other adventure/exploration-type settings... and recording my cats... But now a whole can of questions is opened:

- What products are developed enough this area that are worth choosing between?

- Don't trust meta due to privacy and data exploitation concerns. Are any other products on the same level in terms of hardware + software quality, or is it just going to have to be a compromise (or waiting until something else is good enough?)

- Responsiveness/UX/photo/video quality etc...

Part of me kind of wishes I was still ignorant to the advancements of these so I could keep ignoring them as a gimmick and not be tempted to dive into researching the product category...

WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK DID I JUST READ

I can understand why apps like Instagram - when used in the browser - wouldn't be compatible. But this product release page? What's going on here? Why?

Just imagine the dollars in front of those glasses… if it only darned worked.

I really hope they don’t though because it’s beyond dystopian to own such a billboard company with a sick twist.

So that means this is just adding 2 more gadgets, both of which I now need to wear?

Nah. Not happening.

Neat gestures though.

https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs?si=nTLQO4G2OIPcMkwX

Huge respect to Zuck and co; I much rather authentic demos where stuff goes pear than some glossy marketing spiel by a non-technical exec.

Also, I didn't know this demo was taking place until afterwards, meta really should do more to publicise their demos, especially given they're actually making cool new stuff, unlike a lot of other big tech companies who are more about rent-seeking, advertising and enshitifying than inventing.

Err what? How do glasses that let you procrastinate when physically connecting to people help that?!

Also the video demo has no sound and one of the examples genuinely looked like the wearer was having a text a convo with someone whilst sat across from people at dinner…

But I realized this is a pretty clever move. Only allowing a fixed, inset screen really hides any issues with display field of view.

i have over 4000 emails, sns...

"what? how'd you manage that one?"

people just submitted it, i don't know why. they "trust me". dumb fucks

Meta RayBan AR glasses shows Lumus waveguide structures in leaked video - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45266215 - Sept 2025 (124 comments)

Zuck really has cracked this one.

To Downvoters:

Give credit where credit is due.

I think you are going to realize in a few years why tens of billions was poured into Reality Labs and Oculus.

Version 2 or 3 of these glasses is going to set Meta ahead of the rest (except at least Apple).

(admittedly with the recent Android news perhaps non-exploitative mobile computing is about to be dead and buried but shit, I'd lug around a backpack module everywhere running linux if it came to that)

As a Meta Ray Ban owner my biggest takeaway is that these glasses shouldn't have a CPU. They should be a dumb camera, mic, and speakers for my phone.

Interacting with Gemini on my phone would be the ideal product here, but of course that means Meta doesn't reap any of the data rewards.

So of course, since they don't make the phone in your pocket, they're strapping a device to your head and everyone pays the price of a big battery, CPU, and RAM in a sunglass form factor.

They're a remarkable product, but again, "dumb" glasses that just serve the I/O directly to your phone would be an incredible product. I wish Google or someone else would make them.