8 ms·
It seems like there are a lot of negative comments about Meta's glasses which is surprising to me as a regular user. I bought these both in clear and sunglasses
by aacook 1y ago
It seems like there are a lot of negative comments about Meta's glasses which is surprising to me as a regular user. I bought these both in clear and sunglasses and I love them. I've recorded some of the most amazing videos of my baby with them. Listening to music is fantastic as it's different from regular headphones since you can still hear the world around you — I've even done a few longer bike rides with them and it's been great. I haven't enabled any of the AI or smart features on the glasses, although I've been meaning to give it a try. Some things I don't love about them is the proprietary charging cases, the battery life seems to degrade over time (not totally certain though), and they're sensitive to sweat. Overall I think they show a ton of promise.
- epolanski 1y agoAnd yet users here were super bullish at how Apple was reinventing AR/VR with their visor flop 2 years ago.
- latexr 1y agoIn every popular thread there are tons of people optimistic and pessimistic about the subject. Saying “users here” shared an opinion is always wrong. Just look at the commend thread, there are all kinds of opinions. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36201593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36201593
- Apfel 1y agoHonestly, as someone who is not particularly pro Apple but bought (and returned) the Vision Pro, I cannot stress enough how much you need to try it out. The issue with the product is entirely the lack of an ecosystem - the interface is unbelievably polished. The eye tracking & finger touch to click feels absolutely perfect. It really did feel like living in the future. I returned it because the security policy at my work didn't allow me to pair it with my macbook, otherwise I would be using it all day every day.
- bamboozled 1y agoYou record your intimate family encounters using Meta products? Sorry for your family.
- alex1138 1y agoOne thing with technology is "iron sharpens iron" - I'm sure as advances in batteries (although I imagine there comes a point where that stops) occur it will have downstream effects of making all these things better ...unless part of the package for the improvements are things like "more likely to catch fire"
- lurking_swe 1y ago> Listening to music is fantastic as it's different from regular headphones since you can still hear the world around you Many earbuds, like Airpods, have transparency mode. The end result is the same…music while hearing background noise. In fact airpods are better because of the ANC mode that tunes out noise except conversation and other “important” sounds. I can also wear airpods indoors without looking like a dork, so that’s also plus. I’m not seeing why this is novel or interesting? > I've recorded some of the most amazing videos of my baby with them. This seems like a compelling use case. How is the video quality?
- garbawarb 1y agoI wouldn't want to wear earbuds while doing anything active, the chance of them falling out is too high.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y agoI use shockz for running - stable and your ears are totally unobstructed.
- bchris4 1y agoYea AirPods transparency is great, but Shockz is another level. It’s even better than the ray bans because other people can’t hear the audio, and way more comfortable than any in-ear ones.
- roelschroeven 1y agoWait, are you saying that audio from the ray bans will be heard by anyone around??
- aembleton 1y agoWell, it's a speaker. Its not using bone conduction. Probably not a very loud speaker but if someone is next to you then surely they'd hear it.
- asdev 1y agothey also don't have an app store and are a closed platform which is a big downside.
- aacook 1y agoAgreed, hopefully that changes as things are more ironed out
- SilverElfin 1y agoThese things have cameras and mics in them. Am I the only one concerned about people walking into every space with surveillance systems that are capturing us and sending that data to some random set of companies who have no obligation to keep our information confidential? How can I have a conversation with a friend wearing one of these? And surely workplaces will ban these?
- ghaff 1y ago> And surely workplaces will ban these? For all but the most security-conscious companies, that ship has probably sailed. Bringing a camera into many companies used to be an exercise involving forms, approvals, and so forth. Now everyone has camera, video, and audio recording in their pocket.
- SonOfKyuss 1y agoTo those around you, there is a big difference between having a video recording device in your pocket compared to on your head. I would personally feel pretty uncomfortable if someone pulled up to the next stall in the workplace bathroom with these on
- wkat4242 1y agoYes huge difference. If someone at work was pointing their phone camera at me especially while we're having a discussion I would object also.
- polyomino 1y agoPerhaps or maybe they will require them?
- ghostpepper 1y agoMost of the people in this thread are agreeing with you. You are not even close to the only one.
- BatteryMountain 1y ago
- ugh123 1y agoWhat's the sweat issue about? Does the display fog up?
- aacook 1y agoI have the first generation of these, and as far as I know there isn't a screen. The sweat issue is sensitivity to the side controls — the glasses think I'm changing the music, volume or whatever and I'm just wearing them and doing nothing. This was an issue early on but recently I went on a ride for 90 minutes and didn't have this issue.
- JustExAWS 1y agoThe camera is worse than any phone camera and you have been able to buy headphones with active pass through forever to “hear the world around you” including adaptive ones. And being sensitive sweat is kind of a deal breaker when you are working out.
- aacook 1y agoThe advantage for me is being able to snap video without holding anything in my hands. Sure, I could do that with a Go Pro but with these I just throw them on. I find the video quality to be good enough... the few moments I've captured have been so outstanding that I don't really care that it's not 4K.
- vunderba 1y ago> It seems like there are a lot of negative comments about Meta's glasses which is surprising to me as a regular user. Really? Does nobody remember the "Glasshole" debacle with another equally large FAANG corporation who tried to push a similar technology? There were incidents of people getting physically assaulted JUST for wearing the things.
- Jyaif 1y agoIn 10 years the mentality evolves. It used to be considered extremely rude to pull out your phone during a conversation, now all the under 20 do it.
- wkat4242 1y ago20 years ago the world wasn't so tense and deeply polarised as it is now either. I think many people would object more now, not less. Google glass isn't that old though. It started in 2012 with selected testing users and in 2014 it became possible to just buy one.
- DonHopkins 1y ago[dead]
- AaronAPU 1y ago“evolves” is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting there
- thomassmith65 1y agoIn fact, we are devo.
- dav43 1y agoI use them too for similar uses. Brilliant. I also use zero AI. I don’t care. I totally understand ppl not buying them because they are meta. I get it.
- IlikeKitties 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y agoYou can't attack another user like this on HN, and if you continue to break the site guidelines and post aggressively, we will ban you. We've already asked you twice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45141433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45141433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45054986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45054986 I don't want to ban you because you've also posted good things, but we can't have people posting egregiously like this here, so please fix this.
- ainiriand 1y agoZuckerberg: Our baby.
- michelb 1y agoI think most of the negative comments are about morality and Zuck’s, Meta’s, Meta’s workers and Meta supporters lack thereof.
- maldonad0 1y agoI wamt less screens, not more.
- tempodox 1y ago*fewer* screens.
- DonHopkins 1y agoMaybe that's what you wamt, but not them.
- BatteryMountain 1y agoSo META now has videos of your baby. Let that sink in. Hope they were clothed at least. People never learn. One day your children will be your judge when they are grown up, when they realise what you did to them. I hope it was worth it.
- Auracle 1y agoThats such a ridiculously extreme viewpoint. What exactly did the user “do to them?”
- Wurdan 1y agoAs someone with a very opinionated 11 year old nephew (so he grew up in the time of ubiquitous social media and he is getting to the age where he starts to understand its upsides and downsides) - I dare say that most children don't hold any grudges against their parents for making digital images and videos of them as babies and storing those on cloud platforms.
- hn_acc1 1y agoTotally depends - both my teenage daughters are VERY gunshy of photographs in general, and social media especially. We stopped posting anything relating to them ~8-10 years ago. If we were avidly sharing, they would hate us for it.
- Yeul 1y agoLol yeah but your average male tech bro doesn't even think about what this means for women. It doesn't even register.
- Wurdan 1y agoIt sounds like they don't want you taking and sharing photos of them now, which is very fair. But it's not clear from your description if they judge you or your partner for any baby pics you took of them which ended up in the cloud. That seemed to be the statement of the person I replied to - "One day your children will be your judge when they are grown up, when they realise what you did to them."
- qingcharles 1y agoI got some of these for a friend who has severe vision problems. They don't seem to be able to read out texts or emails from your phone? If something is in your notifications, it can get to it, beyond that it just constantly complains it doesn't have access or can't do it, despite the app having damned near root on the phone, with every permission possible granted. Videos are limited to 3 mins, up from 1 min originally. He says you can't hear the audio or use them for anything useful if there is much noise around you, i.e. in a busy area they become completely useless. I still think they hold great promise, the main letdown is the awful software. Amazing miniaturization.
- baby 1y agoI put my hands over my ears if I need to use them in a noisy environment. Not perfect but it works
- Vinnl 1y agoFor me it's not so much about what those glasses could do for me if I were to wear them... It's what they do to me if someone else wears them.
- d3rockk 1y agoExactly. The real danger is how they turn every wearer into a walking surveillance camera, creating a permanent, searchable record of your life without your consent, simply by being near them. This fundamentally rewrites the rules of social interaction, creating a panopticon where you have to assume you're always being recorded, forcing self-censorship and destroying the trust essential for any authentic relationship. And because our antiquated consent laws and pathetic safeguards like a tiny indicator light are completely unprepared for this, you have no real way to opt out of their surveillance network.
- bilbo0s 1y ago> simply by being near them There's a solution to that. There's a reason the term "glass-holes" was invented. As a general rule, it's probably best to stay away from these kinds of people for a while. Because nowadays it doesn't even have to be you. It could be someone standing in the frame somewhere with you that does something objectionable. Thus awakening the wrath of society. Or even worse - the government.
- SJC_Hacker 1y agoRelevant Black Mirror episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNYzbHeRLkg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNYzbHeRLkg
- jrussino 1y agoEver since I saw that episode I've felt like it's inevitable that something like this will become commonplace. If I had a product like this that actually worked as imagined, and the full data pipeline was under my complete control, I could think of a dozen reasons why I'd want to use it. If we take it for granted that this is coming whether we want it or not (and I'm not saying we necessarily must, but it's worth pondering)... is there a way to design the technology, and cultivate new social norms, such that we end up with something that's a net positive rather than a dystopian panopticon? I haven't been able to answer this for myself, at least not yet. (Even setting the social repercussions aside, though, Zuck/Meta being involved is a dealbreaker for me.)
- johnjames87 1y ago[flagged]
- simianparrot 1y agoAfter oculus rift I’m never buying another Meta product either. It doesn’t matter how good it is they have bo trust left for me. Will happily try an alternative from someone like Valve or, heck, even Apple — although not for a few generations when the price is reasonable.
- latexr 1y ago> It seems like there are a lot of negative comments about Meta's glasses The negative comments are about Meta the company. Many here don’t trust them, and with good reason, let’s not forget Zuckerberg literally called “dumb fucks” to people who trust him. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-people-first-ever-mark-zuckerberg-harvard https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-... > I've recorded some of the most amazing videos of my baby with them. Those are now property of Facebook, inarguably one of the most privacy-invasive companies in history. > Listening to music is fantastic as it's different from regular headphones since you can still hear the world around you https://shokz.com https://shokz.com > I haven't enabled any of the AI or smart features on the glasses Oh, don’t worry, they’ll do it for you. Whatever they want to get, they will.
- thomassmith65 1y agoThey're about Meta the company. They're also about the product category, which is poised to obliterate the last shred of privacy a citizen still has.
- postexitus 1y agoHow do your friends feel when you are having a conversation and you are constantly pointing a camera at them?
- baby 1y agoNobody cares, and everyone loves the candid videos I take with it
- postexitus 1y agoInteresting. I would have hated it.
- robotnikman 1y agoSeems like things have changed since Google Glass was released. When they were first released, I remember there was a huge pushback against them because of the cameras they had. Some businesses would even ban you from entering if you were wearing them
- sethhochberg 1y ago10 years ago, I hated the idea of Google Glass, voice assistants, cloud doorbells, and their ilk. I thought the privacy zealots were reactionary but the general premise still was a bit icky - a little bit for the privacy, but mostly for the "weird nerd stuff" stigma. 5 years ago, I acquiesced started to let voice assistants into my home, thought the first edition of Meta Ray Bans were cool but not for me, and generally started to feel like these things were everywhere and nothing bad had come of it. In the current year, I've gotten rid of all of my voice assistants, carefully blocked internet traffic for my IoT things, got rid of devices without local controllers, and would generally decline to be around someone who was wearing smart-camera glasses of any kind in the same way I'd decline to be around someone who was holding their phone up taking a video of me. The privacy zealots were right, it took some time - but we've learned that tech often isn't our benign anonymous friend. All it took was "tech" (the brand) completing its transition from benevolent cool hip industry to big business just like any other.
- 1y ago
- chaostheory 1y agoMeta’s brand problem won’t be solved until Gen Alpha comes of age. They’re the first generation to accept VR and they won’t remember the Facebook debacle since they won’t be using Facebook, but they will use meta’s AR and VR
- taco_emoji 1y agoWow yeah, there's no other way to take pictures or listen to music with environmental pass-through
- makeitdouble 1y agoTaking pictures of small kids is a different thing altogether. Many of the shots you want are very fleeting moments that you won't get after you took your phone from the other room. Then holding a phone will often redirect attention on the phone or hide your face, and again you'll have lost the moment. The best alternative is someone else taking the picture (that can include auto photographing devices, like the one Google made and discontinued), the second best is you taking the pictures/videos with the most intrusive and practical device you can get. Smart glasses sound pretty good for that. On the music part, I see a niche where glasses are unbeatable: most buds need to either stick into the ear canal or hook on the external ear, or both. If you hate things in your ears and also wear glasses, having the glass act as headphones is the best of both world. None of that is mainstream IMHO, but there will be a sizeable public clamouring for these.
- 0_____0 1y agoThese specific glasses haven't been released yet. Hitting brick and mortar at the end of the month per TFA
- Quitschquat 1y agoI am curious: does Meta deliver ads to you based on what you’re looking at? For example ads for diapers while looking at your baby etc.
- aacook 1y agoNo
- dallasrpi 1y agoYeah, I feel similar. As an avid hiker/runner they have been a ton of fun to use. I got the transition lenses. I use them for listening to music/pods while running or wherever really as well as taking videos and pics. Only downside so far is in winter use where the battery dies VERY quickly.
- boringg 1y agoSo Canadians and Russians shouldn't buy them is what you are saying?
- jawilson2 1y ago[flagged]
- gdbsjjdn 1y agoBone conduction headphones will give you the same audio experience with better battery life and usb-c charging. I think a lot of people don't want to "feed the beast" and reward Meta for their terrible impact on society.
- freedomben 1y agoMy wife loves bone conduction, but to me it sounds terrible. Makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong or if my bones just suck
- underdeserver 1y agoYour bones so not suck, but positioning makes a huge difference. How much did you play around with them? Also try them with earplugs.
- stronglikedan 1y ago> Also try them with earplugs. At that point, just get TWS buds which will sound magnitudes better.
- underdeserver 1y agoThe point is to verify your fit and find the sweet spot so you can later use them without earplugs. No one is claiming that bone-conduction headphones are competitive in sound quality.
- amalcon 1y agoDo you have the same musical taste as your wife? I have a bone conduction headset that I use for cycling. Podcasts and ebooks sound fine, and some music is acceptable (a lot of classical, some pop and folk). Anything with bass just sounds like garbage though - don't bother with any hard rock, hip hop, or anything else with bass.
- 1y ago
- bigshot 1y agoWait… you’re praising the audio? Mine must have something wrong with them. I cannot listen to music or any audio really unless I’m in a silent environment. If I’m outside and there are cars driving by, or wind, or any other ambient noise, the glasses speakers aren’t loud and full enough for me to actually hear anything at a level that I would deem appropriate. And when you max out the volume, the audio breaks down —- any bass gets squished and the whole soundstage sounds like crap. Do yours actually sound decent? Maybe I need a new pair. Or maybe I’m just too picky.
- coolspot 1y agoSame.
- Kaytaro 1y agoI've never had a problem with loudness, in fact I only use them around 50% volume even walking outside next to a busy road. But I agree the audio quality is about the same as a phone speaker.
- aacook 1y agoMine sound decent for what they are and I'm fairly into audio stuff.
- singleshot_ 1y agoThat sounds like a fun product! I’m glad you like it. Please don’t ever come near me.
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- spoiler 1y agoI think the recording aspect is cool, since I assume it has that "first person perspective" thing going on that's usually difficult to replicate without a complicated setup. Especially useful for showing or demonstrating stuff with your hands, etc. On the other hand, I can't fathom why having a permanent screen on your face is appealing... I don't know if I'm biased because I have a few mild neurological issues, and I'm simply not the target audience