Meta’s AI Hardware Eyes a Social Awakening

AI-centric devices are not a novel concept — Rabbit, Plaud, Humane, and Friend have all tried to make products in the space — but none has quite made the phone redundant. For these devices to work, they need to be capable and intuitive, and persuade you to use them instead of reaching for your phone.OpenAI is working on hardware with Jony Ive, and other AI labs will surely follow, but it’s hard to think of a company that could do it as well, and as soon, as Meta can. At its latest Connect event, Meta showed off why.The most exciting product is the new VR Glasses, which we covered separately, but the more important products for AI are Meta’s new wearables. They will take advantage of Muse, its brilliant new personal agent. Muse is the easiest-to-use and most convenient personal assistant a technology company has made — and though it’s great on your phone or laptop, Meta says it will soon be available on AI glasses, too, through voice commands.Meta has long made the best smart glasses on the market, and Muse could make the whole system so much more useful. While out for a walk, without looking at a screen, you could chat through some recipe ideas, ask Muse to make a shopping list, and have it look for the ingredients through Instacart. You might even ask it to text your husband or wife to see if the meal sounds good to them, and when they confirm, have Muse order the ingredients for you.And Meta has more glasses across the entire lineup. Its camera-equipped Ray-Ban Meta glasses get a third-generation upgrade, with a customizable action button, a six-microphone array, and 3K Ultra HD video from a 12-megapixel camera. The second-generation glasses already recorded 3K video, so this is hardly a leap in resolution — but the cameras were fine as they were. Meta has also expanded the range of designs, with Ray-Ban’s Wayfarer, Aviator, and Zena frames and its own Capri and Nova frames.Meta has also expanded the markets and availability of its $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. They have a small, full-color display off to one side of the wearer’s view, controlled in part through the included Meta Neural Band, which reads muscle signals at the wrist.Most importantly, Meta has introduced cheaper Ray-Bans that keep the AI, speakers, and microphones but drop the cameras. The Audio range comes in Clubmaster and Burbank frames, with up to 12 hours of battery life and a starting price of $349. Audio-only smart glasses have been around for a while — Bose and Amazon both made them — but neither made the category ubiquitous. But with Meta’s AI and software and Ray-Ban’s design prowess and retail presence, expect these to do better.And if you want to use Muse on something that is neither on your face nor on your phone, Zuckerberg pulled out the Muse Charm: a petite, Tamagotchi-like device solely for talking to Muse. I’m not convinced this will sell well, but I wasn’t convinced by Meta’s AI play generally until Muse was released. Meta has not said when it will go on sale, what it will cost, or how it connects to other devices. It promises more details later this year.But it’s superb — and could well be the standalone AI companion that finally works.

Meta’s AI Hardware Eyes a Social Awakening

Meta’s AI Hardware Eyes a Social Awakening

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