The newly announced Metaray-Ban display glasses, and the “neural band” input devices that come with them, are still far from proper augmented reality. But Meta made some clever design choices that would pay dividends when true AR glasses are ready for the masses.
Ray-Ban display glasses are a new category in the meta. Previous products communicated to users purely through audio. This will add a considerable amount of functionality to your glasses, as a small static monocular display. For all details, check out the full announcement of Metaray-Ban Display Glasses here. Read practical impressions of the device.
The small display is a big improvement
A 20° monocular display isn’t enough remotely for proper AR (virtual content floats in the world around you), but it adds a lot of new features to Meta’s smart glasses.
For example, imagine asking Meta AI for a recipe for tiyaki chicken. Non-display models will definitely allow you to ask questions and get answers. But how do you keep referencing the recipe after the AI reads it out to you? Well, you can continue to ask over the glasses and over the overs, or pull your phone out of your pocket and use the Meta AI companion app (at that point, why not just pull up your phone’s recipe first?).
With Metaray-Ban Display Glasses, you can actually see recipe instructions as text on a small head-up display, and you can see them whenever you need them.
Similarly, almost everything you can do before before is enhanced by displaying Metaray-Ban glasses on the display.
Now you can not only listen to your ears, but also see the entire thread of your message. Replying to you will be able to read the input as it is actually displayed in real time, and you can make sure it’s correct, rather than simply having to hear it play to you.
When capturing photos or videos, a real-time ViewFinder is now displayed, and the scene is now framed as needed. Want to check the text without having to speak loudly to your glasses? It’s easy.
The real-time translation function is also more convenient. With current metaglasses, you need to listen to two overlapping audio streams at once. The first is the voice of the speaker, and the second is the voice of the ears being translated into your language. This makes it difficult to focus on translation. With Ray-Ban Display Glasses, translations are now displayed as streams of text.
It should be noted that Meta designs the screens for Ray-Ban display glasses off Most of the time. The screen is located on the right side of the central vision, making it a more glansable display than the one in the center of the view. You can turn the display on or off at any time with double taps on your thumb and middle finger.
Technically, the display is a 0.36mp (600 x 600) full-color LCOS display with reflective waveguides. The resolution is “low” but is much sharper across a small 20° field of view. It has a ghostly appearance, as it is monocular (because only one eye can see it). This does not interfere with the functionality of the glasses, but is not ideal aesthetically.
Meta does not say whether they have designed the waveguides in-house or are working with partners. I doubt the latter, and if I had to guess, Lumus would be a potential supplier. According to Meta, the display can output brightness of up to 5,000 knits. This is enough to make the display easier to use even in daylight (the included transitions also help).
From the outside, the lens barely sees the waveguide. The most notable feature is the small diagonal markings towards the temple side of the headset.
On the other hand, the final output grating is very Transparent. Even if the display is on, it is almost impossible to see the glow from a display in a normal lighting room. Meta said outward light leakage was about 2%, which is very impressed.
Social acceptability here is very high except that glasses are slightly more comfortable than regular glasses. talk Use them on glasses or raise your hands to slap the temple. Instead, the so-called neural bands (based on EMG sensing) allow for subtle input while the hands are on the sides.
Neural bands are essential pieces for input puzzles
The included neural bands are just as important as these new glasses themselves. It is clear that this is equally important for future AR glasses.
Until now, XR devices have been controlled via controllers, hand tracking or voice input. All of these have their advantages and disadvantages, but nothing is particularly suitable for glasses to wear in public. The controller is too cumbersome and requires gazes that require hand-held stances. This means that you need to hold your hands awkwardly in front of your hands, and your voice becomes a problem in both privacy and certain social environments where talking is not appropriate.
Neural bands, on the other hand, feel like the perfect input device for wearable glasses all day. Because it detects muscle activity (visually instead I’m watching (For your fingers) no gaze is needed. You can have your arms completely (or back) but you can control the content on the display.
Neural bands provide several ways to navigate the UI of Ray-Ban display glasses. You can “select” your thumb and index finger together. Pinch your thumb and middle finger and “back.” Swipe your thumb to the side of your finger to make up for your makeup, bottom, left, and correct choices. There are a few other inputs, such as double tap fingers and squashing your hands and rotating them.
Currently, I mainly navigate Ray-Ban display glasses by swiping around the interface to select it. In the future, eye tracking onboarding will make navigation even more seamless. The look and pinching method combined with eye tracking is already working well with Vision Pro. However, since the camera can’t always look at your hands at the right angle, if your hands are not in the right place, it can still miss your pinch. If you could use neural bands for pinch detection in Vision Pro, you would definitely do so. It seems that it’s already working well.
While it’s easy to swipe through the Ray-Ban display interface, neural bands have the same drawback as having text input in all of the input methods mentioned above. But it probably won’t be long.
With practice of Ray-Ban displays, the device was still limited to oral input. So replying to a message or searching for points of interest means speaking loudly to your headset.
But Meta showed us a demo (I couldn’t try myself) that you can “write” with your fingers against surfaces like tables and legs. It’s not as fast as a keyboard (or dictation), but private text input is an important feature. After all, if you’re in a public place, you probably don’t want to say everything that all of your message responds loudly.
The “Writing” input method is said to be a future feature, but I didn’t know if it was expected to be available at the time of release or if it would be available afterwards.
Overall, neural bands seem like a real victory for the meta. Not only does it make the Ray-Ban more convenient, it seems to be the ideal input method for future glasses with full input capabilities.
And it’s easy to see a future where neural bands will become even more useful by evolving to include smartwatches and fitness tracking capabilities. Anyway, I’ve already worn a smartwatch for most of my day… to make the input device of my smart glasses (or future AR glasses) a smart approach.
A little detail is added
One thing I didn’t expect to be impressed was the charging case of Ray-Ban display glasses. Compared to all the bulky charging cases of Meta’s other smart glasses, this clever origami-like case folds flat and takes up less space when not in use. It goes from large enough to accommodate the rechargeable battery and glasses themselves to something that can easily be moved into the back pocket or slide into a small pocket in your bag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V91lmgswzio
This may not seem directly related to augmented reality, but it is actually more important than you think. It’s not like meta invention It’s a foldable glasses case, but the company shows that it really thinks about how this type of device fits into people’s lives. This in the MR headset analog includes including charging docks in all headsets.
Now, with the display onboard, Meta reuses real-time translation features as a kind of “closed caption.” Instead of translating into another language, you can turn on the feature and see the real-time text stream of the person in front of you, even if you’re already speaking your native language. It is a great ability for people who are having trouble.
And for those who don’t, you may still find it useful… Meta says that the beamforming microphone on the Ray-van display can focus on the person you’re watching, ignoring other nearby voices. They showed me a demonstration of me acting in the room. One person spoke to me, and the other three had a conversation near my left. It worked relatively well, but it is still unclear whether it will work in large environments like noisy restaurants or intense clubs with music.
Meta wants to eventually pack full AR features into similar sized glasses. And even if they’re not there yet, getting something through a door like a Ray-Ban display gives you the opportunity to explore, repeat, and repeat, preferably the perfect element, if possible, by exploring the important “lifestyle” factors that AR glasses need to take off.
Disclosure: One road metacover accommodation for VR correspondents to attend events where information in this article was collected.
