Tag:

Glasses

The Vision Pro Was An Expensive Misstep. Now Apple Has to Catch Up With Smart Glasses

by admin October 4, 2025

When discussing the development of AR and AR devices back in 2016, he said that most people wouldn’t find it acceptable to be “enclosed in something … because we are sociable people at heart.” He was spot on.

It turns out that what people really want at this moment is to just wear something that looks good and feels like a normal pair of glasses, with use cases that are actually, well, useful. And no, Tim, that’s not to watch Ted Lasso on their ceiling.

Coming to smart glasses in 2027 will feel almost impossibly late for a market that is taking off now, and while Apple is no stranger to starting behind, it will need to ensure its judgment on what its customers want in smart glasses is much more attuned than it was with Apple Vision Pro. At this point, it simply can’t afford another misstep.

But Apple isn’t giving up on Apple Vision Pro either, and reports suggest it may well revisit it once the more pressing issue of smart glasses is dealt with. While Gartenberg remains unconvinced that Apple can get the Vision Pro cheap enough to make it truly accessible for all (“the things that Apple would need to do to get this thing down to a price for humans is extraordinary”), Sag suggests it might not have to.

He points to the boom in gaming consoles as an example. Rather than flatlining the gaming PC market as was predicted, the proliferation of consoles actually helped drive sales of PCs, with more people getting into gaming, so more wanting to level up their equipment in time. He predicts the same trend will happen with smart glasses. People will start with more basic, familiar frames, then migrate into the chunkier, fully featured versions.

“People need to remember that XR is a spectrum and that devices are going to exist along that continuum,” Sag says. “The cheaper, simpler devices are going to reach the most people, but then there’s going to be a lot of people who want more than this base level experience.”

One day, Apple may be able to make that singular, gorgeous XR headset that people actually want to wear. But until then, it has to meet the market where it is headed—and that is in cheaper, lighter, more functional frames.

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October 4, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Apple sidelines lighter Vision Pro to prioritize smart glasses

by admin October 2, 2025

Apple is speeding up work on smart glasses that would compete with similar offerings from Meta and halting plans for a lighter Vision Pro headset, Bloomberg reports. The company is apparently working on at least two different versions: a pair without a display that it could reveal next year and launch in 2027, and a pair with a display originally planned for 2028 that the company wants to “accelerate development” on.

Like Meta’s smart glasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban and Oakley, Apple’s glasses will have speakers, cameras, come in multiple styles, and “will rely heavily on voice interaction and artificial intelligence,” according to Bloomberg. The version of the glasses with a display “could challenge” the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which have a display in the right lens. Apple is also working on a chip specifically designed for its smart glasses, Bloomberg has previously reported.

As for the lighter Vision Pro headset, Apple had been rumored to launch the product in 2027, but the company told staff that it was pulling people from that headset to help with the glasses. Apple has reportedly scaled back production of the original Vision Pro, but regulatory filings spotted this week revealed that a new version is in the works, which Bloomberg called a “modest refresh” that could launch “as early as the end of this year.”

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October 2, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 smart glasses have twice the battery life

by admin October 1, 2025

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

To use the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, you’ll need a Meta account and the Meta AI app downloaded onto your phone. A Meta account works across platforms like Meta, Instagram, and Quest and comes with its own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. If you want to partake in early access programs for beta AI features, that will also come with its own terms. Should you decide to integrate with services like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Spotify, you also agree to those terms and privacy policies. You may also be asked to give permissions related to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, location services, voice data, and usage data. If you choose to get a pair of prescription lenses, you may also be asked to share that information with compatible optometrists.

Supplemental Meta Platforms Technologies Terms of Service
Supplemental Meta Platforms Technologies Privacy Policy
AI Glasses Early Access Program Terms and Conditions
United States Regional Privacy Notice
Health and Safety Information
Voice Controls Privacy Notice

You can also view all the associated AI glasses legal and privacy documentation here.

Final tally: Two mandatory agreements, six supplemental agreement

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October 1, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Best Smart Glasses in 2025: Get Meta’s Latest or Wait?

by admin October 1, 2025

There’s one big question looming over anyone who considers smart glasses tech right now: Do you want to wear something with tech on your face? And, for how long? The decision when it comes to display-enabled tethered glasses and wireless glasses is pretty different.

Display glasses vs. camera and audio glasses

Tethered glasses are really more like eye headphones that you’re perching on your face over your eyes. Although they have somewhat see-through lenses, they’re not made for all-day wear. You’ll put them on for movies, playing games or doing work, and then take them off. The commitment level might be a couple of hours a day at most.

Meanwhile, wireless smart glasses aim to be true everyday glasses. They’ll likely replace your existing glasses, become an additional pair or maybe act as smart sunglasses. But if you’re doing that, keep in mind you’ll need to outfit them with your prescription… or, get used to the limited battery life of wireless glasses. Meta Ray-Bans last several hours on a charge, depending on how they’re used. After that, they need to be recharged in their case, so you’ll need to wear another pair of glasses or just accept wearing a pair with a dead battery.

Live AI, Meta’s newest Ray-Bans feature, can keep a constant camera feed on the world. I tested it out.

Scott Stein/CNET

AI and its limits

You’ll also want to consider what you’ll use the glasses for, and what devices or AI services you use. Wireless audio and video glasses like Ray-Bans need a phone app to pair and use with, but they can also act as basic Bluetooth headphones with any audio source. However, Meta Ray-Bans are limited to Meta AI as the functioning onboard AI service, with a few hook-ins to apps like Apple Music, Spotify, Calm and Facebook’s core platforms. You’re living in Meta’s world.

Meta is opening up its smart glasses to app developers, although to what degree is still unknown. Meta’s newest Ray-Ban Display glasses, meanwhile, add more apps but mainly for Facebook app-connected functions. Meta’s also beginning to support connected fitness devices, but only with Garmin and its upcoming Oakley Vanguard sports visor for now.

Google’s next wave of devices should be more flexible, tapping into Gemini AI and more Google apps and services. But we still don’t know the limits of those glasses and headsets, either.

AI-enabled glasses can often use AI and the onboard camera for a number of assistive purposes like live translation or describing an environment in detail. For those with vision loss or assistive needs, AI glasses are starting to become an exciting and helpful type of device, but companies like Meta — and Google next year — need to keep introducing new features to help. Meta’s AI functions on glasses aren’t as flexible as the AI apps on phones and computers — you can’t necessarily add documents and personal information into it in the same way you can with other services. At least, not yet.

Display glasses have limits, too

Display-enabled tethered glasses use USB-C to connect to gadgets that can output video via USB-C, like phones, laptops, tablets and even handheld game consoles. But they don’t all work the same. Phones can sometimes have app incompatibilities, preventing copyrighted videos from playing in rare instances (like Disney+ on iPhones). Steam Decks and Windows game handhelds work with tethered display glasses, but the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 don’t, and need proprietary and bulky battery pack “mini docks” sold separately to send a signal through. Some glasses-makers like Xreal are building more custom chipsets in-glasses to pin displays in space or customize display size, while others lean on extra software only available on laptops or certain devices to perform extra tricks.

Lexy Savvides

A good time for new Meta glasses, but more on the horizon

If this all sounds like a bit of a Wild West landscape, that’s because it is. Glasses right now remind me of the wrist wearable scene before the Apple Watch and Android watches arrived: It was experimental, inconsistent, sometimes brilliant and sometimes frustrating. Expect glasses to evolve quickly over the next few years, meaning your choice to buy in now is not guaranteed to be a perfect solution down the road.

While Meta has just announced a wave of new glasses, and the new Ray-Ban and Oakley models have excellent improved battery life, it’s likely that glasses coming next year will be even more evolved. The $800 Ray-Ban Display glasses show signs of where other glasses are going to head. You could be an early adopter of those more expensive glasses now, but I’d suggest you get less-expensive Ray-Ban glasses instead, or wait out the changes.

There are other options coming that are likely worth waiting for. Luma’s high-end Beast glasses coming this fall should offer excellent wide viewing areas and improved, anti-reflective prism lenses that will compete with the Xreal One Pro. Google is expected to release its own line of AI glasses with Warby Parker and other brands next year, offering a true competitor to Meta’s glasses line.

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October 1, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Still the Best Non-Display Smart Glasses

by admin September 29, 2025

It’s never ideal being the second-most anything in the world, but there are worse places to be, too. The same applies to the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses Gen 2, which were the second-most exciting thing that Meta announced at Meta Connect this month. The first, if popular opinion is any indication, is Meta’s Ray-Ban Display that, as you may already have gathered, has a screen in it.

But even if the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 (starting at $379) are the second-most exciting pair of smart glasses to come out of Connect, they can still be the first-most something, and in my estimation, they are. These are the best pair of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses you can buy without a screen. Period.

Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses Gen 2

Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses Gen 2 aren’t exciting but they’re better then the original.

3K video recording
Longer battery life

Meta AI is still the same/messy
Still photos didn’t get an upgrade
No speakers upgrade

What’s new in Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses Gen 2?

I’ve already covered this a few times, so I’ll keep it brief; the biggest updates in the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 are battery life and video. The size (aside from 2 grams of additional weight in Gen 2) is the same, there are all the same features as the original, and the speakers and mics are all carried over.

The battery life, though, is now rated for double, which in this case equates to about 8 hours of general use. The charging case also gets a bump from 32 hours to 48 hours. The battery increase in the smart glasses is thanks to what Meta is calling “ultra-narrow steelcan” batteries—the same ones it’s putting in the Meta Ray-Ban Display, its smart glasses with a screen in them. On the video side of things, it’s upping the max resolution of recording to 3K and also introducing a 60 fps option, though that will only be available if you’re recording in 1080p. Unfortunately, for anyone who is more interested in still photos, the sensors are the same this generation. It’s 12 megapixels with a max resolution of 3,024 x 4,032.

That may not sound like a lot, but you can’t really understate the importance of battery life and videos in a pair of smart glasses—those are pretty important to any device that would dare encroach on phone territory. Even more important, though, is how videos look, and whether battery life is actually as advertised. On that front, Meta mostly delivers.

I often use my first-gen Ray-Ban Meta to record video while I’m biking, because recording with your phone in one hand while you’re on a bike in New York City is kind of a death wish. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of a still frame pulled from the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 1’s maximum 1080p video versus an image from the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. As you can see in the screenshot on the right, the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 came out less blurry, which is to be expected with the resolution increase.

In my experience, the improved detail in image quality is fairly noticeable. Where some edges used to be blurred and a little too smooth, the videos recorded in 3K feel like a more accurate slice of life. That’s not going to be important to everyone (a lot of people are just going to take still photos), but if you’re like me and you want to capture some beautiful foliage on a bike ride, the upgrade is welcome.

There’s another aspect to the video upgrade, 60 fps, that I would have loved to test out for you guys, but unfortunately, it’s not available yet. According to a Meta representative, 60 fps will roll out in a software update for Ray-Ban Gen 2 on Oct. 1, coinciding with the release of the Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses. I’ll update this review once my review unit gets the 60 fps option.

What about the battery?

So, the other big piece of the puzzle is the battery. While it may not be as easy to test as shooting videos, I tried my best to use the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 for as long as possible. The verdict here is that, while you may not get the full 8 hours promised, you’re definitely getting a lot more battery than the Gen 1.

As is the case with any gadget, the battery life will largely depend not just on density or size but also on your usage. One thing that I love to do with the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses is use them as open-ear headphones, and I think lots of people who own them would agree. The speakers are the same here, so there are no upgrades in fidelity, but I wanted to test the mileage when it comes to audio. Listening to a podcast and eventually a live radio broadcast (Buffalo Bills sports talk radio in case anyone wants to know), I was able to go about 5 hours, which drained the battery from 100% to about 15%. The volume was fairly loud, though (a metric that affects battery life), since I was listening in a crowded coffee shop and needed to overpower music and chatter. That’s not the 8 hours promised by Meta, but it’s also an improvement over the first-gen smart glasses, which usually expire fully after about 3 to 4 hours for audio streaming.

That’s not gold medal-worthy news, but again, your battery is going to depend on what you’re doing with the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. My second-favorite use of Ray-Ban Meta AI smart glasses is taking calls with them. I hopped on a call with my mom, which lasted 32 minutes at full volume, and the smart glasses barely took a hit, battery-wise. I started at 100% and after more than 30 minutes of talking, they were at 96%. Again, your mileage here is going to vary based on what you’re doing. Taking lots of 3K video? Well, you can expect the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 to die sooner. Using them intermittently for audio and calls? You might get closer to the advertised 8 hours of battery life.

One thing is for sure: the battery definitely gets more juice, which should be welcome for anyone who’s sick of having to pop their smart glasses back in the case just so they can listen to some music while they go for a walk. How this battery will hold up under the strain of Meta Ray-Ban Display is anyone’s guess, but this is definitely the best battery in a pair of non-display Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses yet.

Should you upgrade?

Those are the two main arenas where you’re going to see improvements gen-over-gen, so if you feel like you want higher-res videos or you’re really yearning for more battery life, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 should be on your radar. If you’re fine with how your smart glasses perform in those areas, though, I can’t see a reason to rush out and pick up a new pair. Whether the updates appeal to you or not, though, these are still the best pair of non-display Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses you can buy, even if I would have liked to see substantive improvements to things like Meta AI, which is still finicky at best. Still pictures could have used an update, too, but you’ll have to keep waiting for that.

As for connectivity to other apps, things are also the same. Spotify is what I use the most, and it works well most of the time. Meta’s voice assistant nails your simple commands the majority of the time (like skip this song or play and pause), but asking it to play specific songs or artists can be hit and miss. What’s also the same is the fact that messaging and calls are still limited. There is no direct integration with iOS and Android, so if you want to call or text with your smart glasses via the voice assistant, you’ll need to link your Instagram or WhatsApp. For some people, that will be fine, but for others who don’t use those platforms, it may be a dealbreaker.

Oh, and the Meta AI app still unfortunately loves to promote AI slop. And while it works fine for transferring and storing pictures and videos from your smart glasses, I still wish it didn’t shoehorn an LLM (large language model) in there.

As is the case with any of Meta’s products, you’re going to have to be okay with knowing that you won’t always get the best protections when it comes to personal privacy, too. As I’ve pointed out previously, Meta has a pretty bad track record on that front, so if the idea of Meta using photos and videos you take by using the “Hey, Meta” function to train its AI skeeves you out, you’d best steer clear of Ray-Ban smart glasses.

The second-gen glasses aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re improved. And for anyone who’s not willing to spend $800 on the Meta Ray-Ban Display, the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 are probably the only smart Ray-Ban smart glasses worth buying.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Could These Eye Drops End the Need for Reading Glasses?

by admin September 26, 2025

The Stats don’t lie: after age 65, most people will struggle to focus visually on close-up objects. You might have seen this among your friends and relatives or even experienced it yourself, holding books, magazines, or your phone farther away from your face to try to bring words and pictures into focus. Many of those affected start using reading glasses. But a new treatment could become available: eye drops.

This deterioration of vision is called presbyopia. It is not a disease but a natural, physiological change caused by aging—specifically by the loss of elasticity and flexibility of the crystalline lens at the front of the eye, which impairs the ability of the eye to change the curvature of the lens to bring objects into focus. This stiffening begins in middle age and tends to stabilize around age 65. For people with shortsightedness, or myopia, who struggle to see faraway objects clearly, the onset of presbyopia may at first lead to improved vision by compensating for their existing condition. For those with farsightedness, or hyperopia, the effects of presbyopia often present earlier than in the rest of the population.

Living with presbyopia can cause fatigue and headaches, and in rare cases double vision, but generally it isn’t something to be worried about. But correcting it can make daily activities easier and help maintain good quality of life. The classic means of correction are reading glasses, though in some cases people opt for eye surgery—either laser refractive surgery to reshape the cornea to compensate for the loss of flexibility of the lens or intraocular surgery to replace the lens with an artificial one. The latter is often proposed when there is also some clouding in the lens (a cataract).

But recently, researchers have been working on eye drops that, in different ways depending on the active ingredient used, improve near focus. Two types have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration: one based on a substance called aceclidine, the other on pilocarpine.

Pilocarpine is the star molecule, with multiple trials of new formulations underway. It is a natural alkaloid that interacts with parts of the nervous system, which has the effect, in the eye, of inducing miosis—the narrowing of the pupil diameter—and contraction of the ciliary muscle, the ring of muscle that controls the shape of the lens. The two effects combined improve the elasticity of the lens and the ability to focus on nearby objects.

A recent trial conducted in Argentina has tested a pilocarpine eye drop at different concentrations (1 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent) in combination diclofenac, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory that soothes the adverse effects of pilocarpine such as irritation and discomfort. (The FDA-approved pilocarpine eye drops are concentrated at 1.25 percent.)

In a two-year retrospective study of 766 people, average age 55 years, the researchers found that the eye drops enabled the majority of patients to improve their vision. “Our most significant result showed rapid and sustained improvements in near vision for all three concentrations,” said lead researcher Giovanna Benozzi when presenting the research at the 43rd Congress of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons.

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September 26, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Would you play a Pokemon Go-like geospatial Death Stranding game with Smart Glasses and your phone? Hideo Kojima seems to think you will

by admin September 23, 2025

Tonight, as part of the Kojima Productions 10th Anniversary livestream, called Beyond the Strand, we got a new update on the Death Stranding franchise. The stream promised to be “a celebratory event” that will include “special guest appearances as well as offer a glimpse into future projects,” and it certainly lived up to that promise.

The stream began with a quick recap of Kojima Industries’ history so far, from inception through to the announcement and launch of Death Stranding, Death Stranding 2, and the reveals of both OD (2023) and Physint (2024). Towards the end of the project, Guillermo del Toro, Geoff Keighley, George Miller and Mamoru Oshii took to the stage to talk about the future of entertainment, gaming, and art. Notably, all of the speakers talk about going ‘off-screen’ with storytelling.

Then John Hanke, founder of Pokemon Go developer Niantic and now boss of Niantic Spatial (an ‘AI-led geospatial business platform’), joined Kojima on-stage to present a section devoted to how Kojima plans to ‘move beyond the screen,’ where the Japanese developer envisions “going to the top of a mountain, and even finding entertainment there”.

There’s no real hint as to what this project will be beyond a fluffy teaser trailer that seems to be Pokemon Go-meets-Death Stranding. “Kojima Productions and Niantic Spatial Team Up to Redefine Immersive Entertainment” reads a blurb on the trailer, as people wonder around interacting with virtual bonsai trees, golden aura, and other weird environmental aspects. It all looks like stuff from the chiral network in the Death Stranding games, so I imagine our job – as porters via our phones or smart glasses, per the trailer – will be to connect things up.

You can see the latest trailer for Death Stranding x Niantic as part of the livestream below.

The peculair trailer for Niantic and Kojima Production’s ‘A New Dawn’.
Watch on YouTube

This seems like very early concept-level blue sky thinking. It’s worth noting that Niantic Spatial isn’t quite Pokemon Go developer Niantic: the company was split into a games and geospatial division earlier this year, with the gaming development arm going over to Monopoly Go maker Scopely in a deal worth $3.5bn.

Niantic Spatial focuses on a refreshed version of Niantic’s original core interest – creating a digital map of the planet, now using geospatial AI. The newly-rebranded company has secured $250m of capital investment ($50m from Scopely and $200m from Niantic’s own balance sheet), and this is the first game-related project we’ve seen from the company.

“We’re in the midst of seismic changes in technology, with AI evolving rapidly,” Niantic founder John Hanke wrote when talking about the goal of the Spatial platform. “Existing maps were built for people to read and navigate but now there is a need for a new kind of map that makes the world intelligible for machines, for everything from smart glasses to humanoid robots, so they can understand and navigate the physical world.

It seems Kojima wants to leverage this tech, and paste a Death Stranding experience on the top of this evolving tech that is as-yet-untested in a gaming environment.

Death Stranding 2 received a warm reception when it launched earlier this year, with Eurogamer calling it a “busier, louder, and more emotionally resplendent take on this singular hiking sim” in our four star review.

We’re also expecting a Death Stranding animated movie, and an entirely different Death Stranding anime with an original story, too.

“I love the world of Death Stranding, it’s so creatively freeing, so beautifully dark and yet hopeful; I’m so excited and honoured that Hideo Kojima, whose work I’ve long admired, has invited me to dwell within his creation, to birth new stories into this fertile, mind-bending universe,” says Raised by Wolves creator Aaron Guzikowski, who is penning the script for the animated feature.

It’s clear the series has some life in it yet, and even with games like OD and Physint on the way from Kojima Studios, the storied developer is a long way from giving up on this particular baby, just yet.

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September 23, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

We Need to Talk About Smart Glasses

by admin September 21, 2025

With any new device category comes a whole host of novel and sometimes exhaustingly complex questions. Smartphones, for example, no matter how mundane they seem right now, are still nagging us with existential quandaries. When should we use them? How should we use them? What in God’s name happens to us when we use them, which, last I checked, is literally all the time?

These are important questions, and most of us, even if we’re not spending all day ruminating on them, tackle the complexity in our own way, setting (or resetting) social norms for ourselves and other people as we trudge along. The only thing is, in my experience, we tend to ask these questions mostly in retrospect, which is to say after the cat (or phone, or smartwatch, or earth-shattering portal into the online world) is out of the proverbial bag. It’s easy to look back and say, “That was the time we should have thought about this,” and when I put Meta’s new smart glasses with a screen on, I knew that the time, for smart glasses in particular, was now—like, right f**king now.

In case you missed it, Meta finally unveiled the Meta Ray-Ban Display, which are its first smart glasses with an in-lens display. I flew out to Meta headquarters for its annual Connect conference to try them, and the second I put them on, it was clear: these are going to be big. It probably seems silly from the outside to make a declaration like that. We have screens everywhere all the time—in our hands, on our wrists, and sometimes, regrettably, in our toasters. Why would smart glasses be any different? On one hand, I get that skepticism, but sometimes function isn’t the issue; it’s form. And when it comes to smart glasses, there is no other form like it.

Meta’s Ray-Ban Display aren’t just another wearable. The screen inside them opens up an entirely new universe of capabilities. With these smart glasses and Meta’s wild new “Neural Band,” a wristband that reads the electrical signals in your arm and translates them to inputs, you’re able to do a lot of the stuff you normally do on your phone. You can receive and write messages, watch Reels on Instagram, take voice calls and video calls, record video and take pictures, and get turn-by-turn navigation. You can even transcribe conversations that are happening in real time. You’re doing this on your face in a way that you’ve never done it before—discreetly and, from my experience, fairly fluidly.

If there were any boundaries between you and a device, Meta’s Ray-Ban Display are closing them to a gap that only an iPhone Air could slide through. It’s incredibly exciting in one way, because I can see Meta’s smart glasses being both useful and fun. The ability to swipe through a UI in front of my face by sliding my thumb around like some kind of computer cursor made of meat is wild and, at times, actually thrilling. While not everything works seamlessly yet, the door to smart glasses supremacy feels like it’s been swung wide open. You are going to want a pair of these smart glasses whether you know it or not. These are going to be popular, and as a result, potentially problematic.

Meta’s “Neural Band” looks as discrete as the glasses. © James Pero / Gizmodo

We may have a solid grasp on where and when we’re supposed to use phones, but what happens when that “phone” in question becomes perfectly discreet, and the ability to use it becomes almost unnoticeable to those around us? When I use a smartphone, you can see me pick it up—you know there’s a device in my hand. When I use Meta’s Ray-Ban Display, however, there’s almost no indication. Yes, there’s a privacy light that tells outside people that a picture or video is being taken, but there’s also less than 2% light leakage through the lens, meaning you can’t tell when the screen inside the glasses is on. I certainly couldn’t tell when I watched others use them. It’s as ambient as any ambient computing I’ve witnessed so far.

I talked to Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy who covers the wearable market, and he says the privacy framework around technology like this is still in flux.

“We are still very much in the infancy of the smart glasses, AI wearable, and AR privacy and etiquette era,” he said. “I think that the reality is that having a wearable with a camera on your face is going to change things, and there are going to be places where these things are banned explicitly.”

Some of those environments, Sag said, are private areas like bathrooms or locker rooms, but it could extend beyond just places where you might catch a glimpse of someone naked. Driving, for example, is a major question. Meta’s Ray-Ban Display have navigation built in, and while the company tells me that the feature is designed for walking right now, it’s not actually preventing anyone from using its smart glasses in the car. Instead, it will provide a warning before you do so by detecting what speed you’re moving at. Other companies like Amazon seem not to have even thought that navigating on smart glasses while driving could be a safety hazard at all. Early reports indicate that Amazon is plowing forward, making smart glasses that are specifically designed for its delivery drivers to use in a car.

While regulators like the NHTSA have issued warnings about people using VR headsets while driving (yes, people were actually doing that), it hasn’t, according to my research or knowledge, addressed the impact of smart glasses, which are much more likely—especially if they become widespread—to enter the equation while driving. I reached out to the NHTSA for comment, but have not yet received a response.

Privacy concerns shouldn’t just stem from the form factor, either. You also have to think about the company that’s making the thing you’re wearing on your face all the time and whether it has shown to be a good steward of your data and privacy. In Meta’s case? Well, without going into an entirely separate diatribe, I think it could do a lot better. And other companies that are also in hot pursuit of screen-clad glasses, like Google? Well, they haven’t been much better.

And makers of smart glasses shouldn’t be surprised if, when these things wind up on people’s faces, they get some shit for it. Google Glass, which came out in 2013, may seem like a different age, and in a lot of ways it is (people’s expectations for privacy are almost nonexistent now), but we also haven’t had to confront the idea of pervasive camera-clad wearables in a long time, so who’s to say things have really changed? Sag says, while he expects some backlash, it may not be like the Glasshole days of yore.

“I think there will be some backlash, but I don’t think it’s gonna be as bad as Google Glass,” he says. “Google Glass had such an invasive appearance. You know, it didn’t really look normal, so it really caught people’s attention more. And I think that’s really what has made these classes more successful, is that they’re just inherently less intrusive in terms of appearance.”

I may not be an industry analyst, but I agree with Sag. I’m not sure there really will be a category-ending backlash like we saw back in the Google days, and a part of me doesn’t want there to be. As I mentioned, I got a chance to use Meta’s Ray-Ban Displays, and the idea all but knocked my socks off. These are the smart glasses that anyone interested in the form factor has been waiting for. What I really want is to be able to live in a world where we can all use them respectfully and responsibly, and one where the companies that are making them give us the same responsibility and respect back. But in my experience, the only way to get toward a more respectful, harmonious world is to try everything else first, and in this case, the first step might be your next pair of Ray-Bans.

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September 21, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Meta’s best smart glasses got a little better this year

by admin September 21, 2025

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 98, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, please tell me if you bought an orange iPhone, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been reading about competitive massage and space soda and how people really use AI, checking out Adolescence now that it won all those Emmys, playing The New York Times’ new domino game, finally listening to The Lazarus Heist, doing a bunch of writing in Ulysses, using Remind Me Faster for all my task-writing needs, and taking copious notes on Federico Viticci’s iOS 26 review.

I also have for you a new set of smart glasses, a browser you should check out, an interesting new AI product from Google, and some important viewing and listening about the internet.

And I have a question for you: what lists do you keep, and how do you keep them? I want to know all about your to-do lists, your bucket lists, your grocery lists, your movies to watch, your favorite places to eat pasta, all the lists you keep. Why do you keep them, and how do you maintain them? I am a huge list-maker, and I’ll share mine if you share yours.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / listening to / playing / building out of toothpicks this week? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)

Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Gen 2. Meta’s new smart glasses with a screen look like a technical achievement, but if you’re in the market for smart glasses, the simple model seems like the right one. The upgraded version is more expensive at $379, but comes with double the battery and a bunch of other upgrades too. It’s still not a must-have device, but I really like mine.
Skate. I’ve been waiting for this game for a while, and it mostly delivers: it’s a big, open space in which you mostly just wander around jumping over stuff, and it’s very fun to do so. The game is still in early access, and there’s only so much to do so far, but I’m having fun.
American Sweatshop. A thriller about a content moderator is both a genius premise and a very 2025 one. It’s about what people do, what people post, and how it changes all of us online. Reviews are good, it sounds pretty intense, and I’m ready for it.
Vivaldi 7.6. A big update to one of my favorite browsers, which is really close to replacing Arc as my day-to-day app. The big new thing here is all customization, and be warned: you will, like I did, spend half a day getting your browser exactly the way you want it. Eh, whatever, I had a blast.
Google for Windows. A million years ago, Google had a really useful desktop app that could search files, the web, and more from your desktop. Bizarrely enough, it’s back as a local AI tool! It’s only an experiment, but I’ve been hearing good things about it.
Swiped. In the vein of Dropout and WeCrashed, this Hulu movie seems to be kinda-sorta true and kinda-sorta worked over to be a better story. But it’s about Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble and a key character in the rise of online dating. She’s fascinating; I’ll watch.
The Kuxiu X40 Turbo charger. I am a huge proponent of multi-device charging stands, which become just a default place to drop all your crap every day. My colleague Thomas Ricker loves his Kuxiu charger, and this one’s even more powerful — and folds up super small for travel.
Notion 3.0. Notion’s big idea is to build an AI system that can do all the busywork you do in Notion — and potentially elsewhere. Its new tools sound incredibly ambitious, and maybe more intrusive than some people are looking for. I’m fascinated by the size of the swing, and curious to see whether it makes this complex app make a little more sense.
“How Social Media Exacerbates Disaster & Disinformation.” Really, really great episode of Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show podcast, talking to The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel about how Being Online has changed us both individually and collectively. It’s bleak! But it’s important.
Lego Voyagers. I love this concept so much: a cooperative two-player puzzle game in which every solution involves building of some kind. Somebody please convince my wife to spend a million hours playing this with me.

If you’ve ever listened to The Vergecast, you know I am not a person who knows things about TVs. Generally speaking, I have always just stolen opinions and theories from Caleb Denison, who worked at Digital Trends for a long time before starting his own YouTube channel this year called CalebRated. You should subscribe! It’s great!

I originally asked Caleb to share his homescreen earlier this year, around the original launch of his channel, but then he got embroiled in a legal dispute about it all. Now it’s settled, and he’s back making great stuff! So, to mark the relaunch, I asked Caleb again. And he agreed.

Here’s Caleb’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

Screenshot

The phone: iPhone 16 Pro Max — I gotta have the best video capture and largest screen!

The wallpaper: It’s stock. Call me boring, but the more distracting the wallpaper is, the less I like looking at the phone. I enjoy looking at the part of the globe I’m currently in — it’s fun to have that little reminder when I’m traveling, which is often. It’s also mortifying when I realize the sun’s about to come up and I haven’t yet slept.

The apps: Mail, YouTube, YouTube Studio, Instagram, X, The Weather Channel, Messenger, Waze, Google Maps, Photos, Google Calendar, Calendar, Google Photos, Podcasts, Wallet, FaceTime, Camera, Clock, Settings, Premiere Rush, Instacart, Peacock, Phone, Chrome, Messages, Starbucks.

Look, I search for my apps because I don’t have time to remember what folder I put something in. Consequently I have stopped putting things in folders. The only apps I tap are The Weather Channel, because it is consistently the most accurate of any of the weather apps, even though I despise the app itself; the Camera app, because I can’t be bothered to set up a shortcut; and the Google Calendar app, which I use religiously. Oh, and the Settings app. I use that a fair bit.

I don’t know why Peacock is there — I don’t know how it got there or why I haven’t moved it. I do not currently subscribe, even. It just sits there… mocking me. Mocked by the ’Cock. Dammit.

I also asked Caleb to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

I am into rewatching shows I loved a decade ago. I started with Lost, then it was Prison Break, and now The Blacklist. Lost was outstanding TV. The latter two are formulaic as all get-out, but they are mindless without being trashy, which is exactly what I need. I use these binges to get me in between episodes or seasons of really excellent modern-day shows, like Reacher, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, whatever Star Wars drivel Disney is trotting out, and, like, The Night Manager was freaking delightful!
I play about 30 weddings per season (I play trumpet) and that has me traveling all over the Pacific Northwest, from the far reaches of Idaho to the Southern Oregon Coast. I listen to a LOT of music and podcasts on the road in my little 2005 Audi TT with the top down (total midlife crisis-mobile, and I don’t care). Favorite podcasts are: Ear Hustle, Radiolab, and Snap Judgment, not necessarily in that order.
I also spend WAY too much time looking at vintage audio gear on the internet. I have a major thing for tube amps, tube pre-amps, vintage receivers, reel-to-reel decks, and turntables. It’s like I can smell them through the screen. Talk about a dopamine hit! WHOOOO!!!!

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads, this post on Bluesky, and this post on The Verge.

“After enjoying KPop Demon Hunters, I worked through Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE. I had no knowledge of the competition before diving in. I still haven’t watched the YouTube portion of the competition. You get to sort of see what it takes to make your way into a K-Pop band with a constantly changing competition.” — Sean

“After getting really tired of cheaters in Fortnite, I’ve started learning Overwatch 2, and I’m having a blast. I mean, it’s like trying to play pickup basketball where every player has five different roles, but when it works, it’s magic!” — Laszlo

“New Spotlight in MacOS Tahoe is a game changer for running Shortcuts and other automation.” — Jack

“Folks, if you’re not into comics, now is a great time to get into them. DC Comics just renewed the Batman series with Batman 1 written by Matt Fraction, art by Jorge Jimenez, letters by Clayton Cowles, and color by Tomeu Morey. It’s a familiar yet different take on Batman with excellent art every panel.” — John

“Burning thru seasons of Taskmaster NZ in order to laugh rather than cry — highly recommend (it’s on YouTube!)” — Amaro

“The DJI Mini Pro 5 is prrreeeety nice with the after dark safety upgrades (tempting me to trade in the 4). Great breakdown video here. “ — Jonny

“I’ve spent every morning this week in the company of NTS Radio. I really like the variety of the music the hosts play — anything from Wilco, latin jazz, and ambient music to obscure 80s meditation tapes and video game soundtracks. It’s 24/7, ad-free, and listener-supported!” — tobysaurus99

“I’m into reading this book Apple In China by Patrick McGee, and it’s a doozy. Lots of learning, gossip and drama. The perfect mix for a book to keep me glued to it.” — Sencion

“I’ve been unwinding with Hindsight, a low-stress, no FOMO RSS reader. Instead of real-time feeds, it shows you yesterday’s news. It’s become a welcome part of my morning routine!” — Kyle

It’s been a week, y’all. Life’s busy, news is nuts, just a lot happening! For some reason, the thing that has made me feel better over and over this week has been Smartypants, the truly genius Dropout show in which very smart people give totally unhinged presentations about deeply bizarre subjects. You might have seen Hank Green fixing grocery stores or Alexis Rhiannon teaching you how to email like a white lady, but nothing has made me laugh like Zach Reino’s argument against the ocean. I have since used the phrase “per period of time” at least 500 times per period of time.

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September 21, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Meta’s Smart Glasses Might Make You Smarter. They’ll Certainly Make You More Awkward

by admin September 20, 2025

On an earnings call this summer, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an ambitious claim about the future of smart glasses, saying he believes that someday people who don’t wear AI-enabled smart spectacles (ideally his) will find themselves at a “pretty significant cognitive disadvantage” compared to their smart-glasses-clad kin.

Meta’s most recent attempt to demonstrate the humanity-enhancing capabilities of its face computing platform didn’t do a very good job of bolstering that argument.

In a live keynote address at the company’s Connect developer conference on Wednesday, Zuckerberg tossed to a product demo of the new smart glasses he had just announced. That demo immediately went awry. When a chef was brought onstage to ask the Meta glasses’ voice assistant to walk him through a recipe, he spoke the “Hey Meta” wake word, and every pair of Meta glasses in the room—hundreds, since the glasses had just been distributed to the crowd of attendees—sprang to life and started chattering.

In an Instagram Reel posted after the event, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth (whose own bit onstage had run into technical problems) said the hiccup happened because so many instances of Meta’s AI running in the same place meant they had inadvertently DDOS’d themselves. But a video call demo failed too, and the demos that did work were filled with lags and interruptions.

This isn’t meant to just be a dunk at the kludgy Connect keynote. (We love a live demo, truly!) But the weirdness, the timid exchanges, the repeated commands, and the wooden conversations inadvertently reflect just how graceless this technology can be when used in the real world.

“The main problem for me is the raw amount of times where you do engage with an AI assistant and ask it to do something and it doesn’t actually understand,” says Leo Gebbie, a director and analyst at CCS Insights. “The failure risk just is high, and the gap is still pretty big between what’s being shown and what we’re actually going to get.”

Eyes of the World

Live Captions seen on the Meta Ran Ban Display.Courtesy of Meta

Clearly, we are a long way from Zuckerberg’s vision of smart glasses being the computing platform that elevates humanity to some higher-thinking, higher-functioning state. Sure, wearing internet-connected hardware on your face can make it easier and faster to access information, and that may help you become—or at least appear to become—smarter or more capable. But as the clumsiness of the Connect demo very publicly demonstrated, the act of simply wearing a chatbot and a screen on your face might cancel out any cognitive advantage. Smart glasses put the wearer at a significant social disadvantage.

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September 20, 2025 0 comments

Glasses

What’s new in Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses Gen 2?

What about the battery?

Should you upgrade?

David Pierce

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Eyes of the World