In news that everyone either completely forgot about or simply doesn’t want to hear, Meta (formerly Facebook) appears to be on the verge of releasing a second generation of its Ray-Ban “Stories” smart glasses with some new specs and features.
For those who don’t remember, Ray-Bans and Facebook/Meta released their Stories smart glasses back in 2021 to very little fanfare and interest to the general public. Yet, as those mostly interested in the tech behind the glasses pointed out, this was a big step for what might eventually become the future of POV content.
According to reports from an insider’s newsletter, these new Meta/Ray-Ban smart glasses are going to unlock live streaming video, along with some creepy “whisper” comments functionality, all just in time to frighten us into a future where content creators can be streaming POV videos 24/7.Meta’s Second Generation Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
From these reports from tech journalist Janko Roettgers, it sounds like these new smart glasses are currently in development with the help of Essilor Luxottica and are being designed to completely replace the original launch generation (which reportedly failed to catch on).
However, as I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg and those at Meta would be quick to tell you, the play here with these glasses was to simply lay the groundwork for future generations of these spectacles with the hopes that eventually the technology would be available to provide more useable functions, like live streaming for example.
This could be you live streaming video in the future.
Credit: Ray-Ban
Live Streaming Smart Glasses
The original Ray-Ban smart glasses did support both photo and video, but their issues with quality and battery life didn’t lead to any mainstream use of them for any serious content creation. But this new live streaming play should be quite interesting at the very least as this second generation will reportedly allow users to live stream directly to Facebook and Instagram from the device.
As you might expect with live streaming which is often more personal and community-focused, Meta is hard at work trying to unlock how content streamers will be able to communicate with their live audience.
The solution here is more terrifying than you might think with Meta apparently looking at adding a “whisper” feature that will relay the comments to the creator directly into their headphones.
Will this work and not distract and/or creep people out too much? Only time will tell.
The Future of POV Video Content
While it’s fun to dunk on Meta and smart glasses right now though, there is something to be said about the future of POV video content. Meta and Ray-Ban actually aren’t wrong to be looking in this direction as live-streaming video and social content creation certainly aren’t doing anything but growing.
With smartphones becoming better and smarter about how they shoot and stream video, and even digital cameras doubling down on cheap and easy streaming, it honestly feels like we’re not too far away from smart glasses like these making more and more sense in the marketplace.
Now, will these second-gen Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually become the product to push the industry into a POV video content stratosphere? We might say hopefully not, but with Meta appearing to move on from their Metaverse play over the past year, this might be where they put their new focus—so with the right push it might be forced into the mainstream spotlight at the very least.
Credit: Lowpass
