Enabling Look and ask with Meta AI on Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses

A few weeks ago, I installed Proton VPN and got the AI working. Then I turned off the VPN and haven't enabled it since and it's been fine. So you should be able to get rid of the VPN if you don't want it for anything else.

I never had to pay anything for Proton.

Literally the next time I use the glasses after posting that I am told that it isn't available in my region, so I guess it must time out at some point.

I'm a bit suspicious that this has been actually released in the UK at all.

And now battling with Proton trying to remember how I got it to use the US.... Apparently I need to subscribe to choose a country but it did work last time I'm sure.

Where did you get that date from? I hope you are right - that's not too far away. I just need to decide if I can hang on that long or if I need to take out a trial to a VPN. I don't really want one for anything else and it seems silly to pay for what is effectively 5 minutes of fooling a pair of glasses.

Thanks - that sounds promising. Let's hope so!

I really couldn't get Proton to work with the US yesterday. I think maybe I've used up my allowance for manually changing country in the free plan. So will have a look at going for the free trial of the full plan if I can't wait that long. (I am missing it quite a lot already). I have to say the Proton app seems quite accessible - I thought there were some rough edges before so either I imagined it or they have fixed them.

So I gave Proton another go today and just tried switching to US. Again it tried to get me to subscribe so I said not now. Then I went to quick connect and told it to change server. And I ended up in the US. Not sure if this is a coincidence or whether it allows me to do this maybe once a month.

Anyway, opened MetaView and it told me I no longer had full access to AI. Closed and reopened, and it asked me to enable it.

So, back in business!

Its not only about Meta rolling out the feature to all world
check it out this article

https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/31/meta-is-using-your-data-ai/

Looks like this has stalled: https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/14/24178591/meta-ai-assistant-europe-ireland-privacy-objections

So at least a reason to be glad about Brexit!

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I saw it was earlier, but not on my laptop not yet.

I saw a tech crunch article yesterday saying that it had arrived in the UK, Brazil and a couple of other countries although it didn't link to the source article and didn't state that it applied to the Meta Ray-bans. But I think the hold-up is likely to be legislative rather than technical so I guess if it comes out in one place then it should be released in all.

They've been talking about this on Double Tap the last few days and it seems that for some people in the UK the AI is just working out of the box. But for me I had to reconnect my VPN after it booted me out on Monday, I think.

Feels like it might be imminent though - fingers crossed.

I'm sure it's getting better too. The answers it has been giving me recently have been quite impressive.

I thought it was me imagining things. Great if I'm not.

UK doesn't get the multi modal AI, whatever that means. I have a feeling that includes the look feature. In short, I think the raybans only get to speak with meta AI, but it can't look and tell etc...

I think you are right.

The Verge mentioned this here: https://www.theverge.

According to this article, AI in the glasses is coming to Australia and the UK, though the latter is only voice support “to start.

So yeah guess you can ask it questions but not ask it to talk about photos it takes. However "to start" does imply it should be coming at some point.

I've got it for about 27 years - after all the offers from podcasts. the wierd thing is, I was listneing to a podcast the other day - it wasn't sponsured by NORD VPN!

It seems that once you've activated using VPN, it should, and take this with a grain of salt, stay on. There are conflicting views, however, over on the meta stories reddit that you have to sometimes re up using your VPN.

I set mine up using a VPN and, touch wood, it seems to have stuck. I've not used the VPN for a good while now.

I would urge caution on this though. I did reflect, walking to my local coffee shop, that it could become an issue if I were relying on it only to discover it not working.

As always, I believe these things are great additions to mobility, but make sure your cane skills and willingness to ask for help remain polished. Reliance on technology beyond a five foot rod of titanium and ones wits it's a precarious proposition.

I've had to reconnect using vpn, say, once in a month or so...

Every month or so the AI in my glasses stops working. At that point, I quit MetaView, open WinScribe and turn the VPN on. Then back to MetaView, usually having to quit and reopen a second time, then I just enable it. Back in WinScribe I turn off the VPN. And it then works for another month or so. It takes about a minute to get it back up and running now. And WinScribe is free. I am loathe to subscribe to something I use for a couple of minutes a month if that.

My main issue with the glasses is that I often find I get errors saying that there is no internet. Which may be a problem with my mobile provider, three, I guess. But it's annoying if I go out for a day and find I can't use the AI at all.

An update came in yesterday. I can now set timers on the glasses which is pretty handy. You can also share the last uttered phrase to a contact, or on Facebook or whatever. I think it's a bit sensitive as to how you ask it to do this. I tried "share last response with my wife" and it said it could only share the most recent response. I said "share most recent response with my wife" and it gave me the same error. I tried a few times, then "share response to wife". It then told me there were no responses in the last 30 seconds. So I still need to fiddle with that a bit.

You can now also record voice messages and send them through WhatsApp.

Yeah, I've switched to EE which is more stable than O2, especially here in Bristol where meta was constantly failing due to poor data connection. Saying that, it did fail yesterday.

Top tip: If you are out and about and this happens, open control centre and toggle airplane mode on and off and it will reconnect you to the network, hopefully with a better priority.

Thanks for the tips.

A couple of times I did close and reopen the MetaView app which fixed the problem but usually not. I'll try to remember your suggestion next time.

I used to be on giffgaff which uses o2. I liked it because you didn't get tied into a contract and it's quite flexible. I stupidly changed to three because it was a good deal and I was going to get the data plan on my watch, but in the end I couldn't really justify paying the extra when I could just keep my phone in my pocket. I need to find a bit of time to shop around and see what offers are available, so I'll definitely check out EE when I do that.

Cycling the meta app helps too. It sometimes seems to drop connection to the server.

Yeah, I'm on a 30 day rolling with EE. It's always such a gamble to move providers. As far as I understand it, EE has the best coverage and going between Leicester and Bristol I had very few drop outs, with O2, it was nothing but drop outs.

the other thing to keep in mind when using sub contracters like giffgaff, tesco, sky etc, is they may be cheaper but you are shunted further down the contention rating so, if it is a very busy mast, full fat O2 customers will be prioritised. I didn't know this and was surprised to hear about it.

This is just in general though, we do need good signal all the time. I think there is a greater importance for us as we are so reliant on phones, which is why I was happy to get a couple of contracts and use them at the same time to A/B test. I'm headed to Cornwall next week, so will have to see just how that holds up.

I have 2 numbers on my phone, different networks, so I always have the best chance at a good signal.

For what it's worth, EE AND o2.

If I may ask, Ollie, how far do you travel throughout your day during your commute? I’m just curious as it seems like you do a lot of traveling, and have to deal with a lot of service crossover.

So I played around a bit more with this. If I say "Hey Meta, send last response to mrs grieves" it asks me if I want to send it via WhatsApp, so I confirm. It then sends her the text of my original question plus the response. If I have tried a look and ask with a photo, then it works but does not also send th ephoto.

As mentioned before, the wording is important - it doesn't understand it if you preface response with anything like "last" or "most recent" or whatever.

Nice little feature though. It's also easy to forget sometimes that Meta AI can be used like a normal voice assistant and it's pretty good. Actually, the AI responses recently have been much better than before.

I'm amazed that companies like giffgaff have a worse than than the main companies like o2. That's really interesting.

I've never tried using multiple sims in one phone before. If I was to stick a pay as you go in my other socket, does it just automatically fallback to it when the main sim doesn't have a signal?

Assuming you're on a relatively up to date iPhone, you can have eight E-Sims but only two active. Having an E-Sim will depend on your carrier, but I think most do it now. It's easy to convert in settings, cell/mobile, depending on where you're from.

You have to set your primary voice line,for obvious reasons, though you can still receive calls to both lines and, if you do need to call from the other line, you can choose in the phone app.

Regarding data, which I think is what your'e really interested in, you can again, set your primary data sim but you can also tell it to use data from teh other sim when needed, IE, if one drops out the other should take over. I was briefly doing this with EE and O2, but couldn't really tell if it was working or not. EE was fairly solid throughout and getting 5 g in many more places than O2, though I think it is limited to 100 MBPS.

Regarding traveling about, it's up to Leicester to see my folks, live in Bristol, and was studying in Bath, which I visit less often now the MA is over. Even throughout Bristol there is a wide variation in signal though with some deadspots for all carriers. Luckily, I don't live in one of those...

Thanks, that's great info - it definitely makes sense to add a second pay as you go sim I reckon.

Meta AI descriptions have improved like anything! Got some time and so played around with it for sometime today. I'd almost say it's as good as gemini as far as descriptions are concerned.

I just got an email from Meta saying:

"Soon, you'll be able to use Meta AI to get information, control your AI glasses and ask about what you see – such as identifying a plant or translating a restaurant menu."

Now I am assuming that it knows I am in the UK.

Maybe.... dare I hope... maybe it's coming soon...???

Hi,
Since the EchoVision glasses seem to be affordably priced at the moment, and they're designed for blind users, I might wait and see what they're offering in terms of subscription pricing. If it's £20 or less per month I might get them instead of the Meta Ray-bans. I hope they're planning to ship to the UK at some point.

I think if you don't have either and can accept the subscription, then the Echo Vision glasses are likely to be much better, assuming there is enough take-up to sustain them.

But I can't wait to have look and ask back. It's not perfect by any stretch but I got good value out of it until the VPN change. So I really hope this email is telling me what I think it is.

Hey Tara, let us know how those echo vision classes work for you.
As for Meta, the look and tell feature is a lot better than it was on launch day. May not be up to snuff with Be My Eyes or Seeing AI, but definitely a lot better than it used to be.

Hi Brian,
Yeah, if I can get hold of them, then yep. But at the moment, EchoVision aren't being shipped to the UK. Maybe in the future, who knows.

I’m actually getting tired of companies soloing the US first, before they express their innovations to other countries, such as the UK.
… And I don’t even flipping live in the UK.

I also don't live in the UK and I'm right there with you! I heard some comments on a Facebook group that said that closing or uninstalling the Meta View app got it working for some UK users.

I mean, I get that there are laws that a company that deals with innovative technologies has to abide by. I’m just surprised that these companies don’t fight harder. The amount of revenue they are losing, the more these laws prevent potential customers, has got to be staggering.
Then again, it’s Meta we are talking about. Any potential loss of revenue is probably not even a blip on their radar. 🤷🏻‍♂️

But what about these other blindness specific products? doesn't it make more business sense for them to ship world-wide or at least to those countries with a substantial blind population? otherwise how're they planning to sustain their business?

You really would think a company with a product aimed at a small market like blind people would want to catch as many blind people as possible by selling in different countries, it's a little odd but maybe they just don't have the experience in international shipping and customs to confidently do so. I'm still not entirely convinced though.

Meta are probably more concerned about potential public relations backlashes like happened with google glasses or not fighting too many legal battles at the same time again for image reasons. Money really doesn't come into it.

Will the VPN make it work?

Hi,
According to Meta, this is now available in the UK.
https://about.fb.com/news/2025/04/hey-uk-your-ray-ban-meta-glasses-just-got-smarter-with-even-more-meta-ai-features/

I just tried and I don't have it, but when I looked at the facebook link it does say "•
Advanced AI features will be rolling out on Ray-Ban Meta glasses in the UK from today" so I guess it will appear soon.

Almost time to get the bunting out. Then I can ask my glasses to describe it too!

When trying it just now I did notice an annoyance. Every time I said Hey Meta it started playing my audio book. I've had in the past when using Voice Vista at the same time. Guess probably just sosme other app I Have running. BUt it's quite annoying.

This reminds me of when Be My Eyes became available for Meta. I remember making a post about it, then could not access it for a solid month. Lol
Hopefully, when they say it’s rolling out to the UK, they mean it’s rolling out to the UK, now! 😎

As has been stated in many posts no, using a VPN to access meta AI no longer works. It used to but they closed up the loophole.

When they say rolling out from today I can only assume the first UK users will be getting it today. How these are selected or how many at a time is another matter but it seems the biggest obstacles are past us, they have the resources to roll it out reasonably quickly but probably want to increase the load gracefully especially if an update is required. Fingers crossed.