TL;DR: you now need to pay a $20/month “meta premium” subscription to use a 100% offline feature that runs on your own malware-ridden smartglasses.
If you don’t subscribe, you can use the feature that is already included in the hardware that you already paid for 3 hours each month
The now-paywalled feature boosts the voice of the speaker in front of you, something that even low-end ANC earphones are doing now. 5 minutes of free usage per day is basically nothing.
I can’t wait for open source smart glasses
Even if it’s open source, it’s still just a camera for creeps. An open source torment nexus is still a torment nexus.
It’s a camera, like the millions of cameras that are around us every day.
If you’re a creep then it’s a camera for creeps. If you’re not, then there are plenty of legitimate uses providing that all video is kept locally and not uploaded to Meta/Amazon/Google’s servers.
As someone with prosopagnosia (face blindness) these types of glasses would be an incredible assistive technology for myself and others like me, but even I’m aware of the significant privacy concerns and don’t feel the benefit outweighs the societal risks.
I’d love a pair without cameras that have a HUD, though. Being able to pull up weather, camera, directions, etc. right in my field of view without looking away from what I’m working on would be cool af.
Honestly, if they were open source and only talked to my own servers, or were completely local, I’d love an instant replay feature eg. Your cat does something cute, you can clip it, like in a video game, and save that video. Of course, this would munch through battery, so I don’t see it happening any time soon, and I don’t really care to have a camera on my face otherwise.
All that said, the hud functionality is definitely what I’m most interested in. There is the worry of basically having your phone on your face all the time, but there are many times when I want to be using my phone, but it’d be more convenient if I didn’t have to hold it. Eg. Watching a video podcast while doing chores. Reading books in the glasses while laying in a hammock sounds awesome, if it doesn’t cause eye strain.