Now I walk around constantly chatting to myself. Actually, I chat with my parents smart sunglasses: “Hey Meta, look. What tree is that?”; or, “Hey Meta, check it out. Does the concrete need to be resurfaced here?” When I run, I listen to podcasts through the speakers. I use the camera built into the chassis to take photos of my parents’ garden and send critical messages to the gardener. I use the on-board microphone to do internet searches and check if my favorite food truck is open.
In short, me and mine Meta Ray-Ban Wayfarer we became inseparable. I recently told my husband that I want to buy a second pair with prescription lenses, so that I no longer walk around the house at night with sunglasses. “Do you really want to do it?“, he asked me, a little nervously. Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do.
Unlike bulky headsets on the market or recent evolutions of AI-powered hardware, such as the Humane AI Pin or the Rabbit R1, Meta’s smart glasses are an addition elegant and useful to my technological quiver, which integrates seamlessly into my real life. The future of wearable computing has arrived and it looks just like the one Tom Cruise inhabited Risky Business.
Freedom on the move
Let’s start from the first and most obvious reasoning behind Meta’s approach: sunglasses have a function in real life. They protect my eyes and prevent me from having to squint constantly when I’m outdoors. Plus they make me look tough. I’ve been wearing classic black Wayfarers for decades (I also have them with white frames, for when I’m feeling particularly sassy) and the fact that I like how they fit is already a great reason to wear them. Collaborating with Ray-Ban, Meta exploited a fashion icon and took a shortcut to make his glasses look familiar. The appearance is almost identical to that of the normal version and the weight increases by only a few grams.
The smart features aren’t immediately obviousso I can wear them and ride my bike to pick up my kids from school without looking like a glasshole. The only time someone looked at me wrong was when a friend said hello to me as he passed by my house, and I stood there frozen because I was listening to the latest episode of a podcast while watering the garden.
