Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 Review: Upgraded Glasses, Bad Vibes

As I was wearing them along Ocean Beach on my walk through San Francisco, I came across a dolphin-like fish that washed up on the sand. Even though I got my camera glasses close enough to the thing that I could smell it, Mater’s AI assistant couldn’t tell me what kind of animal it was. It correctly identified that it was very dead and that I should not touch it. It was then able to direct me to a number to call for city animal control services.

Outside of instances like this, I tend to avoid AI voice interaction because I haven’t gotten to the point where it feels natural. It’s usually very quick to achieve this to search for something, but to do it you have to stop dead in your tracks, look directly at the other person’s purse or something, and say out loud, “Hey meta. Hey meta. Is this bag Gucci?”

The glasses’ AI features are both its best asset and biggest weakness. Features like live language translation and whispered map directions are very helpful But if you’ve spent any time curating AI slop from your Facebook feed lately, you’ll know that Meta just can’t help packing a firehouse explosion of AI features into everything it has.

Software features are funneled through the same app as Mater AI services. This is where pictures and videos go by default, and sometimes you need to go into the app to import files from the glasses There is one very obvious problem with using the app: bad vibes.

Vibes off

When you go to the Meta AI app to view photos or videos you’ve taken, the first thing you’ll see is Meta’s awesome new Vibes service; A constant barrage of AI slop videos that Meta just foisted on its app users one day. Vibes is suspicious of OpenAI Sister appBut somehow worse quality.