Meta along with Ray-Ban announced new smart glasses and the YT reviewers are praising it.
For me, I don’t find them particularly good and being a Meta product, it will be horrible for privacy. Also people can record others without their knowledge with these, hell no!
Is it a HUD or just a spy tool?
I gotta wear glasses anyways so it’d be cool if I can get like a pathing over lay with maps and maybe customizable notifications.
But video calling and just taking poorly framed pictures isn’t interesting.
I saw how impossible it was to actually take the WhatsApp call for Zuckerberg himself.
I’ll be the outlier and say that given the perfect circumstances, I would buy Smart Glasses. BUT in no way, shape, or form would I buy META Smart Glasses.
I work a retail job where I’m staring at shelves for like 80% of my shift, it would be dope as hell to have smart glasses and have a video playing in my vision while I’m working.
But until there are more of an “open source” type Smart Glasses that aren’t supported by one of the big companies like Meta or Apple, I’ll join the rest of y’all on staying far away from them.
There’s open source but not video capable. The Brilliant Labs Halo glasses coming in November are more of an informational companion with a peripheral-view display rather than a field of view overlay. So it’s not what you’re looking for now, but maybe a generation or two later it’ll meet your needs.
I wonder if a 3d printable frame could be possible with the lenses and SOC produced separately. Maybe it could be paired with a phone to offload the work.
I think they’re pretty much all paired with a phone for a lot of the workload.
That’s still really cool to hear though, definitely looking forward to see where that is in a few years.
No, none of this. It doesn’t matter if there are “good guys” versions. It shouldn’t be a thing at all because it never goes the good way. They’ll be bought out by Google or apple, and add in ads and tracking software. Or they’ll get big and change core values. Remember when googles motto was like, don’t be evil, or something like that? It definitely isn’t that anymore. There is no scenario where this kind of tech doesn’t turn bad.
Do you own anything tech then? Not sure this mindset applies only to smart glasses.
A spec that can be 3d printed and hand assembled by the user (with the exception of the lenses) could work well - hard to enshittify that.
Until it’s not. It’s just best to abandon this tech tree altogether.
An open source license could solve this. If they sell out, just fork it and pick up where they left off.
Same for me. The technology is cool. Big tech corporations are not.
I’d rather strap my cell phone to my face.
In concept, they’re the kind of sci-fi shit I dreamed of as a kid. The reality is that they’ll be locked-down useless trash that you pay out the ass to spy on you.
And on everybody else.
Absolutely fucking not. I have literally no interest in being more online. That sounds depressing.
I have a strong use case. As a hearing aid and earpods. Regular in ear units never stay put and aren’t comfortable. Once I find a set that is affordable and can take my prescription, (and meet the need) I’m in.
As long as there’s no camera or recording ability, sure. But my VR screen and headphones are great but they don’t record anything.
I would not wear one and would never trust anyone that would.
Just because youtube reviewers say it is good, doesn’t always mean that it is.
I wouldn’t buy these type of glasses either. I have neither the money nor the need so I’m not in the target group anyways. And if I had money, I would under no circumstances give it to a company like Meta.
I don’t think the huge privacy concerns are going to hold. There is all sorts of equipment people can buy that is less obvious to film you surreptitiously. Always scan your air b’n’b, people. We are virtually all okay with strangers filming shit in our vicinity with their smartphones as long as we feel it isn’t us they’re filming. I think this will over time translate to an unbotheredness w/r/t smart glasses. And after a while even the LED light altering others to a rolling camera will disappear. These devices become main stream by their usefulness. The HUD for directions or names of acquaintances is one useful aspect. The immediate way to record your toddler’s first steps or the funny face they pulled. An interaction with the law. Over time, this will outweigh the creepiness that we have perceived since the Google glasshole days.
I would love a pair of smart glasses to augment what I’m seeing… Give me context, keep me informed, allow me to monitor things closely, yet passively, and let me do it all inconspicuously and unobtrusively! Even better if it has eye tracking navigation.
Oh, and make sure the hardware and software are open source and self-hosted. If it has all of that I’m in, 100%.
I’m curious enough about Brilliant Halo to have preordered one, but my expectations are tempered. It’s a lot like what you described.
Open source and self hosted doesn’t protect others from you recording surreptitiously. You’re not understanding the problem.
Good point.
I also want my smart glasses to shine an IR light on my face to help protect my identity from others recording me.
Fuck no
I’m mildly interested in the technology, but I sure as hell wouldn’t go anywhere near Meta-branded anything. For starters, based on the demo, the product fucking sucks, but then there’s also the privacy and fascism issues.
I don’t think I want my face to be any more punchable than it already is
It’ll be a hard no for any smart glasses from Meta or Google.
However, in the very distant and not quite guaranteed future, I would consider smart glasses (again, NOT by Meta/Google/etc) for accessibility.
As someone with auditory processing disorder, it would be a game changer if I had the ability to read live closed captions of what someone is saying, while they are talking to me. That would be my only use case.
