Smart glasses are a logical, futuristic step in mobile technology, and we are on the cusp of embracing them. However, there's a significant hurdle to overcome. As useful and enjoyable as the camera on smart glasses can be, it has become a major problem, essentially ruining existing smart glasses for me personally.
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There are a few core use cases for smart glasses. The most futuristic is a mixed-reality experience where a display layers information on top of what you're seeing around you. But that's also the hardest to accomplish with today's technology. So, with that in mind, audio-based glasses have been more popular.
Open-ear audio and always-ready access make these glasses very useful, but the real selling point for many has been the camera. Meta's Ray-Ban glasses are the catalyst in all of this. Meta will go on and on about AI features, but a huge part of the appeal here is having a camera at the ready with point-of-view footage. That's what sold me on it, and my pair has captured some really fun memories in my favorite hobby.
Yet, I've barely touched those glasses over the past year, nor had I really gotten around to testing any others I've been offered. For example, the L’atitude 52°N Berlin glasses were originally pitched around having a better camera than Meta, and while I'm not a huge fan of the styling, the camera is at least decent – I wouldn't say better with focus and direct sunlight being clear issues, but I do like that it can capture in landscape.
But, for as much fun as these cameras can be, it just feels wrong now.
The social stigma around cameras on smart glasses has been ruined by the misuse of these cameras. That was, sadly, somewhat inevitable. Any new piece of technology has the potential to be misused, but the subtle nature of these cameras turns simple misuse into making people downright uncomfortable. And, honestly, rightfully so! I initially had trouble understanding the issues many were taking with a camera on glasses, but example after example has shown just how many people are willing to misuse this tech.
Arguably, the bigger problem comes down to how it's all been handled.
With Meta Ray-Bans, two problems became clear.
Firstly, there was the simple fact that Meta was at the helm. The company's long history of handling private data, rightfully, did not mix well with a camera on your face. While Meta tried to convince users otherwise, leaks of human moderators viewing uncensored private recordings, combined with rumblings of Meta’s plans for facial recognition and always-on recording, simply evaporated any goodwill or trust that might have been left.
Secondly, there's the amount of time it took for Meta to address the misuse. Stories have run rampant for the better part of two years now around back-alley deals to disable the privacy LED on Ray-Ban glasses, and it took until July of this year for Meta to implement a fix. An even more obvious loophole is only being patched now.
And now we're approaching the debut of the first Android XR glasses from Samsung and Google – with every style having a camera. They're facing a massive uphill battle as the “perv glasses” stigma is widely known and loud – a previous issue of our “Inbox” newsletter discussed this. Samsung has said that it has protections immediately in place around camera tampering, but not everyone is going to know that.
Basically what this boils down to is – thanks Meta, you’ve ruined this for everyone else.
The smart glasses market is going to have a rough time getting around all of this. The Ray-Bans debacle has done some serious damage that every other brand is going to have to work around. That is, assuming they want a camera in the first place. There are plenty of smart glasses that deliver useful functionality without a camera. Even Realities springs to mind as a clear example of this. Yet, when I was testing out those glasses, I constantly found myself missing the utility of an on-board camera (and a speaker, for that matter) for simply capturing the world around me, or wanting to use it with AI features. As overbearing as Meta has been with them, using the camera for various types of interactions such as scanning & translating menus, getting descriptions of real-world objects, and more, are very handy.
It’s going to take years to get all of this tech to its ideal state no matter what, but I hope that the camera stigma eventually calms down.
What do you think?
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Whether you like the idea of smart glasses or not, it's an example of tech being released without enough consideration for some of the associated issues. In this case the after-thought is privacy, but what about when we're talking about products with more significant potential consequences - eg. AI...
It's an accessibility tool for me. There are apps that identify products, read signs or call someone and have them help out using the video feed from the glasses.
Meta is the worst company to push this type of product. But once apple releases their own smart glasses it might challenge the idea that glasses and privacy are not compatible (and I'm not even an apple fanboy)
Truth is they don't need a camera. You can take photos with a phone much better than glasses and it has enough other sensors to know what monument you're looking at without a visual cue needed.
I am not interested in glasses with a camera but if I had them and someone called me a perv I would ignore it. I don’t care what people call me so they can continue to do so and I will continue to use what I want.
Don't give us that. Any with a memory will remember what you said about Google glass. Don't come crying about your stigma people like you were paid to create (by the tech giants who had no competing offering).
agree that we need some non-camera smart glasses. it would be nice to have a set for your own private hud that doesn't result in people (correctly) saying GTF away from me.
That ship has probably sailed. People will assume that anything that looks like they might be smart glasses have a camera in them, whether they do or not.
It took a decade for everyone to get over the Google Glass debacle, just for Meta to start it up all over again.
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