Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Smart Glasses Unreview

I wonder if they realy have a compass in them. I poked my head out of the door yesterday and asked "what colour is the van?" It told me, purple and white, I checked with the driver, it was right. The van was at the end of my drive, very clever!

Aira are exploring ways to integrate with the Meta Ray-bans: https://aira.io/new-wearables-pilot/

I don't personally use it but it is supposed to be a great experience for those that need it and can afford it. Hopefully this might be the start of something good.

BTW, do you know you get five minutes of AIRA free every so often? So you can use it without a subscription.

Users of AIRA get a 5 minute call a day, and they are also beta testing the use of these glasses. I ordered mine yesterday.

Aira were on Double Tap yesterday talking about this amongst other things.

The impression I got was that they are trying to get some input from Meta to do a proper integration. I may be wrong but I don't think they have had a lot back yet.

Their other approach is to do something via WhatsApp given that the glasses support video conversations with that already. I think this is the option if Meta don't allow them proper access.

I can't remember which thread it was - we've had a lot on these glasses and I'm too lazy to go find it - but someone mentioned that you can write Chatbots on WhatsApp and someone had managed to do something in php to allow you to talk to ChatGPT with them. So not sure if it's something like that - presumably not just a number of you can call them on normally if they need to filter out non-subscribers.

I think Aira itself is a service I'd be more interested in if I didn't have easy access to a working pair of eyes. But I find this exciting if it can help open other doors. If I didn't have a full-time job sucking out all my energy I'd be really curious to mess about and see what could be done via WhatsApp.

I suspect a lot of the other things we want - Seeing AI, ChatGPT etc - could be seen by Meta as competitors as they are using a different AI than the one they are keen to promote. I noticed on the Verge podcast the other day there were a lot of adverts for Meta AI trying to convince me that it was the most advanced AI out there.

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I just happened on an article on the Verge and right at the bottom was a little throwaway comment that suggested that the Meta Ray-bans will be getting multimodal AI features. It doesn't necessarily say that it is this generation of glasses and I'm not sure if it is speculation or actual news. But sounds quite interesting.

The article is here: https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/18/24201041/meta-multimodal-llama-ai-model-launch-eu-regulations

I hope Meta realise that the UK isn't part of the EU any more...

So meta released the new and upgraded Lama3.1, the LLM that powers the meta glasses among other meta services. The word is that it is state-of-the-art stuff that can directly compete with GPT 4O And it's all open source. Likely the AI behind the glasses will be upgraded? Also what are the implications of the model being open source you think? will they also open up the glasses to third party services?

Ah, the audacity of calling LLama 3.1 "open source" is nothing short of a grandiose illusion! One must delve into the very essence of what open source embodies—complete transparency, unfettered access, and the unmitigated freedom to modify, distribute, and use the software. Alas, LLama 3.1 falls tragically short of these noble ideals.
Instead of granting the open access it purports, it shackles developers with restrictive licenses and convoluted terms of use. These are nothing but gilded cages that superficially resemble the freedom of open source but in reality, confine and control. It's a farce, a mere façade of openness, designed to placate the masses while maintaining a firm grip on the reins of control.
In truth, LLama 3.1 is the antithesis of the open source ethos—a wolf in sheep's clothing, masquerading as a paragon of transparency. It is high time we call out this charade for what it truly is and champion the cause of genuine open source projects that honor the spirit of true freedom and collaboration.

I know nothing about the open sauciness of the llamas, but I don't think it has any bearing at all on whether the glasses get opened up to 3rd parties or not.

However, if the AI did start to improve to the point of matching chatgpt then that really would be amazing.

Hi all. I’m sorry if this question is already got answered here.
Where can you find the case’s battery percentage?
Thanks.

So after Amazon screw-up, by sending me a regular pair of Ray Bands, even though I made sure to order the correct pair, I ordered a pair from my Optician and got it two days ago.

After an hour or two of setting up and configuring them, got them to work. Didn't realize that, in order for all of the functions to work properly, it's best too keep the MetaView app running in the background. Although some features do function, even though the app is closed, functions like calling someone through WhatsApp or Messenger requires the app to be running in the background.

Out of curiosity, does anyone else's glasses take about 20 seconds to boot up? I get that they're a computer on your face and it can take a while longer, then the Bose Frames for example, but I'm just curious to know if it's the same for everyone else.

Apparently, if you are going to use them often enough, you can leave them powered on and, when you place them in the case, they'll go into a low power mode. It appears that it won't cause any issues, but I kind of like knowing they're powered off, so will probably shut them down.

A nice thing here in Canada, it looks like if you buy them from an Optician, you save on the taxes. I didn't know that, so saved about $60. Plus, since the model with clear lenses had a shorter wait time, they ordered those and made the polarized lenses in-house.

Out of curiosity, did anyone get a USB cable with their glasses? I didn't, but I just thought, since my Optician had to open the box to make the swap of lenses, perhaps the cable fell out or Ray Band just forgot to include one. But a friend of mine ordered the same polarized pair from Amazon, and although it looks like they sent him a used pair, even though he ordered a new one, he too didn't get a cable.

I also asked one of my Mastodon followers and they too said that they didn't get a cable. So when I asked Pi AI if one did and they responded with yes, it looks like the AI may have been wrong.

Granted, I think it maybe the case, as it claimed that the glasses was using a 5 MP camera, but when searching on Google, it says that it's a 12 MP camera. So who knows!!!

Anyways, so far, I'm liking them, but haven't really had them for that long and haven't had the chance to put them through their paces.

Will probably end up talking about them in more detail on the next episode of my podcast.

In case anyone feels like checking it out, just search for "eyeBytes Podcast" in your favourite podcast app.

to get the case battery level, I think the glasses need to be in the case. Then in the MetaVie app, I think if you go to settings and find the glasses it will speak the case battery level after the level of the glasses. For some reason it doesn’t do this on the home tab. I think if you double tap the glasses on the home tab it might take you there too.

I don’t tend to turn the glasses off. I just fold them up when done. Usually they come on quite quickly, but occasionally it can take maybe the 20 seconds.

I don’t remember getting a usb c cable with them but I could be wrong.

Thanks much!

I almost never launch it. I just checked and I was able to make a WhatsApp call. I wasn't able to switch to video during the call though, but I'm not sure if that was me or the other person.

@Assistive Intelligence:

Please, please, if you're going to use ChatGPT to write your replies, make sure they include a bit of substance. You made a very strong emotionally driven (which was AI generated) argument for Llama-3.1 not being open-source but never actually explained why it's not open-source. That AI generated passage could have been replaced by the sentence "Llama is not open-source and it would have had the same meaning.

Llama is definitely not open-source, but it's definitely not as closed-source as your message would imply. After all, they do provide the weights with which you can run the models yourself, fine tune them, or use them to distill smaller models based on them. Their license is significantly more restrictive than traditional open-source licenses like the GPL or the MIT license, but those kinds of licenses are unrealistic for large language models.

Compass

I can't remember who originally brought this up because it was in the previous page of posts, but the glasses do not have a compass or GPS. All they have is a camera, speakers, and a bunch of microphones. If Meta AI tells you that it can determine your compass orientation, it's making that up. A good rule of thumb for a LLM is you should never ask it what its capabilities are, because it doesn't know what its capabilities are and they struggle to say things like 'I don't know," so you end up with a ton of made up nonsense.

Battery

yeah, double tapping the glasses in the Meta View app will take you to the settings page where the case's battery level will be shown. I agree that it should be shown on the app's home screen as well.

https://www.fonearena.com/blog/430069/meta-llama-3-1-meta-ai-multilingual-support.html
This article here says Llama3.1 will be available on the glasses very soon; and also that long form summerisation is supported. So hopefully we can expect the glasses to at least read short texts like menu cards in full detail?

The Llama 3.1 models don't yet support vision though, so it's possible Meta AI will still be falling back on the cheaper lower-quality vision model to handle those requests. They do say 3.1 with vision is coming soon though, so we'll just have to see!

I hope they do something though. The vision capabilities currently available are awful!

I was listening to the Daily Tech Headlines podcast and they were saying that the new model will be opt-in on the meta apps and that it gives you a certain number of queries each day. They didn't go into any details about what that was.

If we can get anything close to Andy Lane's ducks on these glasses that will be incredible, although I do worry about how the battery will cope.

This can't come soon enough for me.

Took me a few seconds to remember what they were - thoght it was some new slang I'd not kept up wiht!

So, Andy's video was quite a while back. In it, he was essentially beta testing Chat GPT 4o, using it in real time to describe real world scenes.

As I understand it, Chat GPT 4o is available now. So, can we not get that same level of adaptive detail using Chat GPT 4o with our smart phones?

And if so, is the issue just getting that same level of adaptive detail onto a pair of functional smart glasses?

Just asking for clarification, trolls need not reply. . .

Remember the demos in may, wiht it singing and flirting and talking to itself? All that turned out to be...a very eraly demo. None of it has been released to anyone as far as I know..

I don't think the multi modal stuff in ChatGPT is available yet. I think it was pushed back to later in the year for paying subscribers.

But yes it is about the form factor and the convenience. Being able to just ask the thin air to do something as opposed to rummaging in my pocket, getting my phone out, unlocking it with my pass code because it didn't recognise my face, finding the right app, opening it and then asking the question. I know it's not a huge ordeal but if it's something fairly trivial like describing a scene I probably wouldn't bother, whereas with the glasses because it's so easy and nice to use I probably would. Plus I can just do it whilst wandering about.

The hailing the taxi demo was maybe a better one but less ducky. If you have a cane in one hand and are trying to hail the taxi in the other, and also having to wave your phone about, it's almost too much. Plus I have a genuine fear of ever getting my phone out in a public area in case it gets dropped or stolen. The glasses would be amazing in that situation.

According to OpenAI, they're going to start rolling out the voice chatting features at the end of the month. Whether they actually do though remains to be seen. I also don't think this will include video, so the ducks are definitely not lined up and we might be waiting a really long time before that particular demo becomes reality for the rest of us.

I wonder if the HH is good enough to see his ducks with? We may never know, I doubt anyone will ever get to wear one.

Out of curiosity, for those who bought a pair, did your pair come with a USB cable? I know mine didn't, and neither did my friends pair, but it looked like he got a used pair from Amazon, even though he was sure he ordered a new one. When he came to set it up, the app mentioned that the pair were already linked to another account and asked if he wanted to wipe everything on them.

I think I got them direct from Meta.