During a recent Instagram video in which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg compared the Meta Quest 3 to the Apple Vision Pro (which, unsurprisingly, was a lot of him saying the Quest 3 is better, although you're right), he briefly mentioned the Ray-Ban Meta. Smart glasses, and things are going well for the specs.
The smart glasses were announced at the same time as the Meta Quest 3 and are a combination of Ray-Ban glasses, a camera and open-back headphones; The standout feature is its Meta AI capabilities through the impressive Look and Ask tool. It's still only in beta.
In our review of the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, we didn't rate the specs very favorably. Its design is practically perfect, but the camera and audio quality leave a lot to be desired, and while the AI seems neat, it's frustrating that the most interesting features are only usable by a select few who are part of the beta version.
But despite some lukewarm reviews, Zuckerberg has said the glasses are working “much better than I expected.”
An upcoming hardware shakeup?
This outstanding performance apparently took Zuckerberg and Meta by surprise, but if the glasses are really as popular as he claims, then we think they could cause some changes in Meta's hardware strategy.
For current Ray-Ban smart glasses owners, this means that Meta is incentivized to continue rolling out new features and updates like version 2.0 of the software it released about a week ago at the time of writing for quite some time, to keep your small army of smart glasses. owners happy with their purchase.
Had they not sold so well, the headset could have joined the woefully unpopular Meta Quest Pro. It still gets updates because it's part of the broader Quest platform, but it's clear that other hardware like the Quest 3 and (to a lesser extent) Quest 2 They are children's favorites. Despite its additional hardware capabilities, the Quest Pro doesn't receive more than an exceptionally occasional additional software update.
As for future hardware, it seems much more likely that a third collaboration between Ray-Ban and Meta is in the works, and we may see it launch sooner rather than later to capitalize on the success of the current version.
What's more, we may see some of the smart glasses' popular features, like its AI, make their way to other Meta hardware like the Quest 3 (or perhaps the Quest Pro 2 or Quest 4, both of which have yet to be announced). . AI would be especially helpful for Quest as it continues to try to establish itself as the best VR platform now that Apple has entered the ring.
We'll have to wait and see exactly what the future holds, but we wouldn't be surprised if smart glasses become as important (or even more so) to Meta as its Quest headset.
