Emerging technologies have enabled companies across industries to adopt and collaborate on game-changing innovations. In April this year, tech giant Meta joined the AR Alliance — a group of companies seeking to advance the creation of augmented reality (AR) wearable devices — to strengthen the global AR ecosystem. This move highlights the growing push to explore the potential of AR technology, which integrates digital perceptual information with the physical world, in optimizing day-to-day tasks.
While Meta’s future steps into the AR space are still under development, the company has already ventured into wearable artificial intelligence (AI) by releasing innovative smart glasses in partnership with eyewear brand Ray-Ban. With the global smart glasses market expanding with a CAGR of 27.3%, Ray-Ban’s collaboration with Meta is poised to take wearable technology to the next level, especially with groundbreaking AI features embedded in the specs. But what does this mean for the future of wearable AI? Here’s what you need to know:
Innovating eyewear
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Credit: Ray-Ban Meta on Instagram
Ray-Ban partnered with Meta in 2021 to launch the first iteration of the smart glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories. Although the first release did not gain much success, market research firm IDC reports that the succeeding version has attracted more than half a million buyers, with over 700,000 pairs shipped since its 2023 release. This success marks a new chapter for the luxury eyewear brand, which has a long history of popular sunglasses and eyeglasses styles. Besides innovative smart glasses and regular sunnies, Ray-Ban also offers prescription sunglasses that come in classic frames, including the Original Wayfarer Classic and Aviator Classic. These sunglasses provide vision correction and protection in one, with options for buyers to customize their frames through Ray-Ban’s website.
Ray-Ban’s latest venture into the smart wearables space has gained commercial success largely due to its innovative, AI-powered technology. Here’s a look into the frames’ features and what’s in store for wearable AI in the future:
Providing convenience
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Credit: Scott Bakken on Instagram
Aside from capturing photos, recording videos, and live streaming from the frames, one of the most groundbreaking features of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses is the AI assistant, Meta AI. Through Meta AI, wearers can enjoy hands-free communication on messaging applications like Messenger and WhatsApp by using the “Hey, Meta” prompt to command it to call a specific person or display a particular app to use.
Meta AI also lets users listen to music through their smart glasses. Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music are currently integrated into the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, allowing users to listen to music directly from the frames. This indicates that wearable AI can make it much easier to access all kinds of entertainment in the future.
Shaping the future
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Credit: Ray-Ban Meta on Instagram
In September, Ray-Ban’s parent company EssilorLuxottica extended its partnership with Meta, signaling their commitment to developing smart eyewear in the next decade. This means wearers can expect more AI-enabled features on the smart glasses in the future. Currently, wearers can leverage the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses’ multimodal AI feature to describe objects and landmarks or places, translate texts in a different language, and answer any questions. These features make the smart glasses a viable travel companion, signifying that wearable AI might eventually replace apps like Google Translate and Google Maps, especially with the specs’ capabilities to answer location-related inquiries.
During the Meta Connect 2024 event in September, Meta founder and CEO Marc Zuckerberg announced new Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses features. Wearers can expect the smart glasses to offer real-time audio translations of another language. The glasses will also automatically remember things for wearers, including parking space numbers, by capturing them. Meta’s partnership with Be My Eyes, a mobile application for blind and low-vision individuals, can also connect the smart glasses wearers to volunteers who can see through the users’ glasses for assistance. These features provide a sneak peek into wearable AI’s potential to make services more accessible in the future.
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are redefining the future of eyewear. Through AI-enabled features, smart glasses wearers can glimpse how wearable AI can make everything more accessible and convenient in the future— from communication and entertainment to travel and health services.
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