Early this year I had dinner with Jovan Protic, COO of Ringier Axel Springer in Poland, who was coming to the end of his six-month secondment in Silicon Valley (a fascinating journey which I recommend you look into if you haven’t heard it already).

He turned up in his new Meta Ray-Ban glasses, and, of course, I wanted to hear everything about them. He was the first person I had met who used them regularly, not just tried them. 

I’ve been following the development of the glasses, and more and more people I know are starting to use them. Being an early adopter, I decided to buy some to try. I wax lyrical about AI lending itself to audio, so it was time I put my money where my mouth is. 

Here’s what I discovered:

What are they?

They are glasses — regular or sunglasses — that have a camera, speakers, microphone, and built in AI. Somehow all this fits into a fairly standard Ray-Ban style that isn’t too heavy. It’s pretty impressive. The speakers are directional so you don’t have anything in your ear, but others can’t hear the audio you are playing. There is a charging case, again, very much like a regular Ray-Ban case that the glasses sit in. The case uses USBC and the charge lasts several days even with heavy use. 

How do they work? 

Once set up, the glasses automatically connect to your phone via bluetooth. The speakers and microphone work very much in the same way that wireless headphones do. AI is activated by a button or by starting a sentence with “Hey Meta” or “Hey Meta look” if the question is built on visuals. You will then hear audio accordingly.

What am I using them for?

I take calls on them and listen to podcasts all the time. It’s so nice not to have anything directly in my ear. I also find myself using them for photos, especially with my two small kids when I want to get a snap of them doing something cute (these moments can be fleeting!).

But I don’t use the AI much. I am trying to find use cases, but at the moment I’m not finding many. The only one that was genuinely helpful was when I was traveling to San Francisco and could ask all about the Salesforce elevated gardens I was walking around.  

How does this pertain to news? 

I’ll be honest here: I just don’t know. Other than playing podcasts, I don’t see a use case. Could I ask for a news organisation’s view on something? Yes, of course. But you don’t. You use the AI available because it’s easier. This makes me concerned on a higher level, as you’ll see below. 

Will I keep them? 

Yes, these are now my main sunglasses. To be fair, I don’t love that they are Meta. I’d prefer an Apple version. But since that’s not a possibility, I’ll take what’s available. I need to reconfigure them as I get a few too many notifications. For example, I don’t need to be alerted every time I get a WhatsApp message. But I genuinely love them now and will continue to wear them. 

For more, check out Ray-Ban’s site here.

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