7 ms·

'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

• miladyincontrol 2mo ago
  I do think its a bit odd to automatically and "obviously" default to the idea that people will be using these to be perverts. Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me. Although its even more disheartening that most people's reactions to just about anything these days is dread about how it'll make their lives worse without fail.
  • Octoth0rpe 2mo ago
    > Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me. What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'. This product is absolutely toxic, and I can't imagine myself or anyone I know being willing to associate or socialize with someone wearing them (again, excluding some very specific a11y use).
    • AtlanticThird 2mo ago
      My assumption about the default use case is that people want to take normal pictures. For example, I wear them to sporting events, and it's a lot faster to take a picture of the action with my Meta glasses than with my iPhone.
      • whoamii 2mo ago
        What was your assumption about social media ca. 2010?
      • Octoth0rpe 2mo ago
        It's very hard to imagine this being a better photo than one taken on a modern phone. Also, I really, really hope you take them off when using the shared bathrooms at such an event. And you know, keep them off. Permanently.
        • joemi 2mo ago
          If photo quality is the only concern, a DSLR camera will take a better picture than a modern phone, so you shouldn't use a phone either. But the person you're replying to didn't say it was "better", they said "faster", so that's what's more important to them.
        • AtlanticThird 2mo ago
          You're going to be disappointed. I wear them 24/7. I even sleep in them.
      • johncearls 2mo ago
        I love mine. Being able to snap a pic without getting too far out of the moment, like when I am at a museum or in a beautiful place is great. Even better is being able to snap a picture of my grandchildren without distracting them. As soon as I pull out my phone, they are grabbing for it. Some of my favorite pics were taken by my meta glasses.
        • thwarted 2mo ago
          I can't think of a better example of intrusiveness than "as soon as I pull out my phone [the kids] are grabbing for it", which I'm reading as "the kids want to use it even tho it isn't theirs". We've trained the kids to intrude on someone else so they can get a dopamine hit.
        • flufluflufluffy 2mo ago
          > snap a picture of my grandchildren without distracting them That my friend is the reason everybody hates them
    • Windchaser 2mo ago
      > What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'. Hmm, here's a few that could potentially be implemented in augmented glasses, though I have no idea if they're implemented yet: - Giving me directions via an overlay when I'm walking around without requiring me to pull out my phone - overlay of a recipe when I'm cooking something new - pointing out constellations in the night sky - reminding me of people's names and/or upcoming plans with them - price comparisons in grocery stores; the glasses read the prices and tell you how they compare to prices in other nearby stores - (at the gym) correcting someone's form on weightlifting, with visual overlays - taking pictures in general - easy recording of ICE or police
      • watwut 2mo ago
        > overlay of a recipe when I'm cooking something new I dont understand how this one comes up thay often. It just sounds like the most useless thing ever. These literally make me suspect I am only one who cooks here while others kind of imagine what it might be like or something. > price comparisons in grocery stores; the glasses read the prices and tell you how they compare to prices in other nearby stores Like you are going to another store for milk and to yet another for butter? Are you already doing that with phone and need to take it out is what prevents it?
        • Windchaser 2mo ago
          > I dont understand how this one comes up thay often. It just sounds like the most useless thing ever. These literally make me suspect I am only one who cooks here while others kind of imagine what it might be like or something. I cook all the time. I usually use my ipad for new recipes online, but it's a bit old and slow and I don't like having to scroll, and I wish there were better ways to record notes on the recipes. > Like you are going to another store for milk and to yet another for butter? I'll go to another store for milk and butter next time, if it's cheaper. > Are you already doing that with phone and need to take it out is what prevents it? No, I want another app to already to the price comparisons for me. But yeah, this is probably the weakest of the ideas. I'm not writing a doctoral dissertation here; I'm just running with some things I'd want to try out. It's off the cuff.
    • tetromino_ 2mo ago
      > I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'. Obvious non-perverted use cases: * HUD when your hands are occupied - biking, cooking, etc. * Camera-augmented navigation directions, especially indoors * Shopping, price comparison * Tourism, museum visits - automatically surfacing information about historical landmarks or artworks. I would have loved to have smart glasses for these reasons, but unfortunately, the perverts ruined it for the rest of us and made the product category toxic.
    • chandler5555 2mo ago
      i love watching all the youtube shorts and instagrams of ppl helping or doing good deeds most of them use meta glasses it seems to record the pov
      • gusgus01 2mo ago
        Some people might consider that falling into the "creepy" use case.
        • Octoth0rpe 2mo ago
          more than creepy, they're deeply inauthentic.
    • tiznow 2mo ago
      Fishing videos are one of the best usecases I've seen for them, but people generally go fishing alone or with close friends/family so it's a much different scenario than being a glasshole in public.
    • arbll 2mo ago
      They are nice for skydiving and probably some other sports where action cams are dangerous / awkward. It's definitely niche tho.
    • optymizer 2mo ago
      Have you used the glasses at all? I for one prefer taking pictures with the Meta glasses when traveling. Taking a phone out of your pocket, launching an app, holding the phone in front of you until you align the object in focus and then tapping a button starts feeling so inelegant after a while, compared to a quick press on the side of the glasses. The picture also comes out looking exactly how you saw it, videos are from your POV. When driving, I like hearing the GPS navigation instructions discreetly without having my ears blocked by earphones and the car music being interrupted (also my wife can't stand the navigation voice and always asks me to silence it. With the glasses I can still hear the instructions). Again, when traveling, if I'm staring at a building or something I'm curious about, I can ask the AI to tell me more things about the thing I'm looking at. It's quick and convenient.
    • ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
      They could have been of use to replace bike cameras for cycling (so that you have evidence of close passes etc), but the battery life and resolution isn't great, so bike cameras are currently a lot better for that.
    • ipaddr 2mo ago
      The default is people live streaming their day. Live streaming is very popular with young people not so with older people.
    • bookofjoe 2mo ago
      I use mine to record a short video at each mile when I'm out running, then I upload them to my YouTube channel. People seem to enjoy them and I like having a record of each run.
    • subscribed 2mo ago
      I'm on holidays now, and I'd love to preserve so much more of what I see, or see live translation (subtitles), of all the people I struggle to communicate with. Not everyone has the most perverted thoughts in their mind all the time.
  • dijksterhuis 2mo ago
    > Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me. It's not an assumption. People started using it for being creepy almost immediately. https://nypost.com/2026/04/14/business/metas-pervert-glasses-fuel-trend-of-creeps-filming-women-posting-videos-online/ https://nypost.com/2026/04/14/business/metas-pervert-glasses... https://fortune.com/2026/07/28/ray-ban-meta-pervert-glasses-secret-videos-women/ https://fortune.com/2026/07/28/ray-ban-meta-pervert-glasses-... https://thenextweb.com/news/instagram-meta-glasses-harassment-ban-pervert-glasses https://thenextweb.com/news/instagram-meta-glasses-harassmen... https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-the-ray-ban-meta-creep/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-the-ray-ban-meta-cre...
    • subscribed 2mo ago
      "People started using it for X" like this is a world apart of "People are usually using it for X". They do the same with cameras. They even post creep shots. Do you call out loudly everyone owning a smartphone with a camera? Why not?
  • williamdclt 2mo ago
    > its even more disheartening that most people's reactions to just about anything these days is dread about how it'll make their lives worse without fail. Maybe because most (tech) things do make most people's live worse without fail (such as these glasses being available)? I don't see how you can blame people for a very rational reaction here
  • freejazz 2mo ago
    > Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me You come off as naive.
    • subscribed 2mo ago
      Is the ad personam the best you can think of? You come off as rude, not thoughtful.
  • subscribed 2mo ago
    Exactly. I can find more positive and beneficial uses of these than a negative ones. And unless I see proponents of the wholesale ban to foam at people holding smartphones equipped with cameras, I think it's safe to assume they didn't think their opinion carefully and honestly.
• wombat-man 2mo ago
  I hope one of these companies pulls off a compelling set of glasses with a display and no camera.
  • OnionBlender 2mo ago
    There's a kickstarter for "MemoMind One". Glasses with display and no camera. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1963472698/memomind-one-the-most-natural-ai-display-glasses https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1963472698/memomind-one...
  • andybak 2mo ago
    It won't matter. People will assume it has a camera. The product category is most likely (and rather predictably) dead if it depends on people wearing them ubiquitously and in public.
    • stronglikedan 2mo ago
      Nah. If there's no obvious lenses, people won't assume that.
    • oneeyedpigeon 2mo ago
      Which will be incredibly problematic if the manufacturers continue to aim for something unobtrusive. Eventually, just normal spectacle wearers will be the targets of mistrust and, unfortunately, worse. I do think that people should be legally allowed to make recordings in public, provided they are not harassing anyone. I do not think they are entitled to make those recordings in secret; just have a regulated indicator, like the bluetooth led.
    • wombat-man 2mo ago
      how would they know they are smartglasses? people looking at you head on can't see the display, depending on the set.
  • dylan604 2mo ago
    The product you describe would have very limited use. The full HUD of realtime information absolutely has benefits for the real world, but of course it will be used for things people would subvert for a more malevolent purpose. There's no avoiding that. Does the malevolent use out weight the beneficial use to the point the product should never be allowed?
• yoyohello13 2mo ago
  Tech is so frustrating in real life. I feel like we have all the cool sci fi stuff I always wanted, but everything comes with a monkey's paw style gotcha. The idea of meta glasses is so awesome, I want a heads up display to show me whatever I want. But there is no way in hell I would use them because the company that makes it can’t be trusted.
  • Octoth0rpe 2mo ago
    > I would use them because the company that makes it can’t be trusted. I think this gets at only half of the problem. Not only can meta not be trusted, even if I trust _you_ if you were friend, I wouldn't trust any _other_ random user of such a product. As such, better to not have such a product around.
    • rtkwe 2mo ago
      Correct the issue isn't Meta people just don't like the idea they could be being recorded at any time to get blasted out to the whole world. Yes, in theory you're always open to being recorded in public but the glasses make it far more subtle /and/ up close so more normal interactions become subject to the intrusion in a way that would normally be quite obvious. It's basically the same backlash that hit Google Glass over a decade ago. Nothing has really changed about the product and the reason people reject is so viscerally when they're not the user.
      • jimmydddd 2mo ago
        At my kid's daycare, they sent home an authorization form to allow them to use your kid in pics that might be posted to the internet. Some parents declined out of privacy concerns. Now I guess we are just blasting past all of that. Kind of like AI and copyright.
        • JoeBOFH 2mo ago
          10 years ago we had the same form with my kid’s daycare. They kinda got pissy about it tho as they didn’t want to have to scrub photos they posted to their Facebook and insinuated that your kid may not have as much fun if they have to “separate” them when it comes to photo time. We told em tough don’t use our kid’s photo. So even if institutions implement this kinda thing almost non want to do it.
• peter_d_sherman 2mo ago
  >"Some people are using the glasses — which look like a pair of regular spectacles — to record people without their knowledge and publish the videos on social media. The users secretly videotape and share what happens when they try to pick up women. Now, a growing number of people are worried they could be covertly recorded at the gym..." Observation: The same technology could be used to record business deals, job interviews and other negotiations with consent of the counterparty... In fact, both parties in such transactions could record this way (legally and ethically!) if each has consent of the other...
  • daheza 2mo ago
    I wonder if there should be a provision in the ISO 27001 about not allowing these smart glasses into the workplace
    • rimbo789 2mo ago
      If there isn't currently there will be very soon.
  • danparsonson 2mo ago
    If you want to do that, there is a wide variety of pre-existing recording devices available already...
    • peter_d_sherman 2mo ago
      >"pre-existing recording devices available already..." Exactly! People could be "covertly recorded at the gym" (as the article states!) by other pre-existing recording devices (any other kind of video camera, mounted in the gym or on a gym member's smartphone or other electronic device) -- not just Meta's smart glasses! In other words, the central issue of the article seems to stem more from consent (more specifically, the lack of consent!) than it does from a specific type of video recording device...
      • Atheros 2mo ago
• ChrisArchitect 2mo ago
  Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240828
• hallway_monitor 2mo ago
  I agree with the verbiage if not with the sentiment. These are a perversion of technology. People hold their phones up for entire songs at a concert instead of being absorbed in the experience. Removing friction from recording will multiply digital hoarding behavior no matter what other risks are at play. There is a balance there; it's nice to be reminded of experiences. But where is the line?
• aqme28 2mo ago
  I was trying to brainstorm ways to make these palatable to general society. Because I think this kind of thing is going to happen, but a lot of people (myself included) have a legitimate problem with surreptitious recordings. It needs a "recording" light when it is recording. But creeps will just disable the recording light with e.g. a sticker. Idea: What if the recording light embeds a little IR signal, and if the camera recording doesn't pick up that signal, it stops working Edit: I see they tried that already.
  • tiznow 2mo ago
    People already disable the recording light and the problem is so pervasive Amazon has "banned" the blocking stickers.
  • hgoel 2mo ago
    I think the only way will be the tech getting too useful for the complaints to matter. Currently it's only marginally useful. Otherwise this irrational reaction will continue. Would help for the tech to come from companies with less awful reputations. Alternatively, maybe the solution will be some sort of device signature embedded into the video data at the hardware level so that videos are traceable to the person that recorded them. To me the main annoyance is that XR glasses partially rely on cameras to enable things like 6DOF tracking and hand tracking. Having that use conflated with people trying to secretly record others is pretty annoying.
    • aqme28 2mo ago
      To be clear, I don’t think this reaction is irrational at all. I’m curious though why you do.
      • hgoel 2mo ago
        This kind of discrete recording capability already is so widespread and accessible. Amazon is full of these kinds of devices, tiny "AI" audio recorders, pens with hidden cameras etc. They don't even require much technical competency. People also walk around with their phones out so often. There's no way for you to know that they aren't recording. E.g. someone could easily be pretending to use their phone when climbing stairs while actually taking upskirt shots with the front camera. Social media is also already full of people shamelessly recording others in situations where they would not want to be recorded. Actual perverts have little reason to use these glasses specifically, and as mentioned in my previous post, the cameras have utility other than recording others.
• rdmuser 2mo ago
  Our idea of a public/private privacy division where private recording is discouraged and public is a free for all really feels dated. I know personally I'd love to see a private/local/wide distribution division or something like that where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net. There are real harms to being a public figure and the net rarely understands context. I do have one note on all this though. I think there are some real benefits to being able to record people in public re corruption, criminality etc so I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead. (Repost from the thread earlier today on the same subject)
  • sodapopcan 2mo ago
    > I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead. I think this is pretty reasonable and something I hadn't thought of. I've been thinking about this generally a bunch as I agree that the blanket "No right to privacy in public" is really just lazy. Of course we've been filmed in public for decades now, but it wasn't being shown to people on the internet this whole time (or even to anyone in many cases). Concessions could be made for filming police/public figures and people committing crimes. It's probably harder than I think, but just being able to post anyone online is pretty terrible whether it's your "right" or not. Think of all the godawful nuisance "content" that would have just never existed.
  • dylan604 2mo ago
    There's a lot of copyright and other rights management that can be applied. Many buildings are copyrighted. If you take a picture of a building, which you are free to do, you cannot make money from that image just because you took it while being in the open public. The same should be applicable to people as well. Yes, you took a picture of them while in public, but they people still own the rights to the likeness. If your image is clearly focused on a single person, you need rights releases to make money from that image. That's how it works in things like stock images. As far as how things work with the TMZ ilk of the world is an entirely different thing that we've seem to come to accept. The stalking of people, celebrity or not, just so people can be entertained at home with the personal drama of those people is just gross.
• blahblaher 2mo ago
  Good. Sink these fucking things into the bottom of the ocean. If you want this tech to help people (blind people, etc) make them fugly and very visibly as an aid, not some stupid fashion accessory where these retards can just completely hide them
  • iwontberude 2mo ago
    [dead]
  • BigTTYGothGF 2mo ago
    > retards Stop it.
• bigblind 2mo ago
  Thinking completely selfishly, as a visually impaired person, I want these to succeed, because they can be a great assistive tool. And assistive tools being general consumer products makes them cheaper.
• jonfromsf 2mo ago
  The backlash on these is entirely about the fact that they are unfashionable looking. The previous RayBan Metas were very popular and no one had a problem with them. Then Zuck wanted to put in an LCD display so he made them chunkier and they don't look as cool. So people are retroactively coming up with objections to the technology. Nobody cared when the glasses looked good!
  • retr0rocket 2mo ago
    [dead]
  • devin 2mo ago
    No, it’s not that. It’s that people know you are wearing the pervert glasses.
  • kookster310 2mo ago
    I did not like the original RayBan ones for the same creepy reason of recording people without consent. I am at least one person, I'm sure there were others.
  • BigTTYGothGF 2mo ago
    > very popular and no one had a problem with them People certainly did have a problem with them.
  • Octoth0rpe 2mo ago
    Absolutely wrong
• iwontberude 2mo ago
  [dead]
• hn_submit 2mo ago
  Why is Meta insisting on forcing these "pervert" glasses on us? I can tell you why: advertising. I bet some "pervert" within Meta (may Zuck himself) has already thought up that whatever you look at will result in you getting an ad for that item. "I see you're looking at a car. How about this new Toyota RAV4?" "I see you're looking at a mobile phone. How about this new Samsung Galaxy Fold which is on sale." "I see you're looking at a cup of coffee. How about this new Latte from Starbucks down the road just a mile from here." Just thinking about it drives me nuts with rage!
  • abirch 2mo ago
    If someone signs in and gives up their privacy, I don't care. Where I do care is when someone with their pervert glasses captures an image of me at my kid's little league game and now I'm getting ads based on that.
    • ipaddr 2mo ago
      A little league game has hundreds of people taking pictures and video. Unless your child plays naked there is nothing you can do to stop them. If you really want to stop anyone from seeing your child in public you would need a Burka or don't allow them to be in public. I think you are fighting a losing battle if you choose to allow your kids to enter society.
      • rurp 2mo ago
        Scale matters. Parents taking their phones out to record discrete events in a visible way is one thing, and the data may or may not make its way to Facebook. Parents wearing glasses that record and upload 100% of what they are seeing to Facebook is qualitatively different. Similar to how cops getting a warrant and tapping a single person's phone is different from the government spying on all citizens at all times.
        • ipaddr 2mo ago
          Not sure I see the difference. Family uploads photo to facebook friends and family see and facebook scans their face. Video uploaded to meta platform instagram facebook scans there face and no friends and family see and probably no strangers because its a boring video. Probably safer with a stranger considering children attacked by people they know. People should be more worried at facebook scanning faces and linking photos to real identities.
• bryanlarsen 2mo ago
  Meta should use their Kylie Jenner et al connection to design a camera that is both stylish and obvious. AFAICT the main use case for camera glasses is very similar to the "gopro on your helmet" use case for cyclists: - to record cool first-person video to upload to TikTok et al - to warn cars / creeps "I'm recording this and will send footage to the cops" AFAICT, influencers generally want people to know they're influencers. They're using meta glasses not because the glasses let them go incognito, they're wearing them because a gopro on a helmet is dorky. And obviously an incognito camera is going to be much less useful staving off harassment than an obvious one.
  • j45 2mo ago
    At some point, incognito will scale to hidden and I think that's the part that has to be reimagined. It's not about hidden camera, it's about cooperative and consent based.
  • esperent 2mo ago
    I'm sure someone other company will make exactly those glaces, obvious and stylish recording devices. In the meantime, it's quite telling that Meta is choosing not to. They want recording to be constant, impossible to detect, and normalized. That's why the camera light is so subtle and easy to cover. The more constant surveillance is normalized, the more they have data about every single facet of our lives to sell to advertises.
  • Jcowell 2mo ago
    I’ve said this before but Apple should make glasses where the whole frame glows when it’s in active use. Siri colors for using Siri’s , a distinct color for recording , a long exposed color for pictures, visualizer for music. Gives it the safety factor and a distinct look.
• baxtr 2mo ago
  > Gaby Luisa was standing outside a dance club in Arizona earlier this summer when a man wearing glasses threw out a pickup line. “Did I just run into my future wife?” he asked. She politely let him know she wasn’t interested and moved on with her evening. She was shocked to find out later that their interaction was recorded and posted on YouTube without her knowledge or permission, using smart glasses which, she said, looked like Meta’s glasses. Goddamn this wild. Maybe tell people you’re recording and later plan to upload to YouTube?
  • rimbo789 2mo ago
    Both wild but also very obviously was going to happen with a product like this.
  • TRiG_Ireland 2mo ago
    Pick-up artists are not going to behave like decent human beings.
• kburman 2mo ago
  This isn't a GoPro. The whole point is that it doesn't look like you're recording. With a GoPro, everyone knows there's a camera. With these, most people won't.
• deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
• j45 2mo ago
  The thing about smart glasses is when they try to do it surrepticiously, it puts that feeling on the wearer. Google Glass looked quite different. Everyone knew how you were wearing it. Wear it long enough and people might have questions, try it out, and learn. Hiding a camera in glasses doesn't allow for those kinds of interactions, its media going into an unknown bucket. It's also very one sided and to the benefit or decision of one person. If the person being recorded had full access to what was being recorded, maybe that might mean something to some folks. It's too bad because there's probably cases where the form factor of meta's smart glasses are genuinely helpful for today. Instead of finding and rolling them out there first, by trying to push to the general public, the results can vary. There's no shortage of folks and devices surreptitiously recording people with devices, or during meetings in person. Once that gets figured out socially these kinds of devices may have better reception.
• cush 2mo ago
  It's classic Meta. They made a consious decision to completely hide the cameras so the person wearing it wouldn't feel mildly uncomfortable while they completely violate everyone around them. The little light offers zero transparency - it's plausible deniability wrapped in a least-effort attempt at caring about your privacy. The only thing that made this strategy fail the regular Meta playbook was the glasses became too popular too quickly, and rather that people slowly sinking into acceptance and complacency, they decided to speak up and shit on the glasses and call out the wearers for being creeps
• rimbo789 2mo ago
  These should have never even been prototyped. An obviously terrible ideal with obvious many negative social consquences. They should be banned from the market immediately.
  • hn_submit 2mo ago
    They'll keep trying because there's big advertising dollars to be had. Everything you look at will result in a "relevant" ad. Google already found out the hard way that these glasses aren't socially acceptable. Meta will have to learn the same hard lesson. Maybe others too.
• fridder 2mo ago
  This whole thing has felt very odd. Did we collectively forget about the Google Glass and glass-holes? This was entirely predictable. I guess the only difference this time around is how inconspicuous they are.
  • hnfong 2mo ago
    Agreed. The article and discussion is so deja vu...
• lbrito 2mo ago
  >“We’re at a very sensitive time for the tech industry in terms of trying to really preserve that positive consumer sentiment that’s taking a bit of a hit due to AI Understatement of the year. That would be true maybe 10 years ago, during the Cambridge Analytics era. We are way, way past that point, and a so called tech analyst talking about "preserving the positive sentiment" is truly bizarre
• mmooss 2mo ago
  The backlash itself may not mean much; it's what comes next that matters. If you want to regulate this, strike now while the iron is hot: Meta and everyone else with experience knows that, for disruptive technologies, backlash is the stage before adoption. In a sense, the backlash means you're achieving market momentum. Not all backlashes lead to adoption, but if you want to implement regulations (blur all faces in recordings, no identification, etc.), now is the time to move. At the adoption stage it seems to become normalized and people lose interest, like with other mass surveillance - obviously horrific and dangerous, but few will think about doing anything.
• jesse_dot_id 2mo ago
  I have a friend that works at Meta who was all the way convinced this tech was going to be ubiquitous well before they came out and I have always been like, "Yeah, until one hillbilly kills some guy for looking at his daughter with them on and it goes viral." It just seems like a no-brainer that these things will invite violence upon you once a critical mass of the population understands what they are, and thus people will eventually stop wearing them in public.
  • codazoda 2mo ago
    I wore these glasses for two years. I won't buy them again for reasons mentioned elsewhere. In that time nobody ever mentioned them. It's relatively difficult to pick these out in a crowd, unless they are actively recording (and even then it's hard to notice).
    • jesse_dot_id 2mo ago
      This is what I mean though. Some people know what they do, but it takes a lot of time for new technologies to weave their way into common knowledge. Once the majority of people know how to identify them, nobody is going to want to wear them anymore.
• arjie 2mo ago
  These glasses are really great to use. The camera is pretty fundamental functionality because you can use it to tell you things about the world around you. At the Vancouver Aquarium we asked about some fish we saw and stuff. I was quite surprised at the speed of the multi-modal model. It recognized the fish type, and then gave us some facts about it. Fantastic stuff, honestly. It's also marvelous for taking videos of your children playing at the park. Here's my daughter at Port Moody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLAByw6ZYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLAByw6ZYc Very ergonomic and you get your hands free to catch them if something is about to happen. In the end, we didn't end up using them that much because the whole charging thing makes it kind of annoying, but that's about the only reason. I can't imagine I'd use it in a context where I wouldn't wear a GoPro, but it's a cool form factor.
  • codazoda 2mo ago
    I agree, but unfortunately, they don't have great quality or support. First, I've had these for about 2-years. I purchased them to capture candid pictures and video's on a cruise and they were fantastic for that purpose but I've bought two pairs in two years and won't buy them again. When you email Ray Bans for support they send you a wall of text mentioning everything their warranty doesn't cover. It was enough to discourage me from continuing to get a case replacement 2-weeks after my purchase and I just bought a third-party adapter instead. I expected more from the brand. I won't buy Ray Bans (Meta or otherwise) again because of the hostility in that one email. My first pair died after 1-year (I gave them away after 6-months and they only lasted the new owner another 6-months). My second pair died after just over a year. I'd love to have a good pair of camera/audio glasses. The audio is one of the best parts. But these Meta glasses aren't it for me anymore.
    • arjie 2mo ago
      The audio is actually remarkable. My wife could hear the whole description while I was standing next to her and heard nothing. There are these bone-conduction headsets that also do this stuff and it seems nothing short of magic. Sad to hear these ones didn't last. Who knows if they'll work if we ever take them out of the case.
  • 2mo ago
• storus 2mo ago
  10 years ago one could buy "spyglasses" on eBay with camera in the middle hidden behind a polarizing filter, looking like regular glasses. This Meta stuff feels like a bad copy of the same.
• flufluflufluffy 2mo ago
  Gosh, think what the backlash will be by the time the Meta EyeBall is released, à la Zuck’s android model, complete with the real time naked filter.
• zlarin 2mo ago
  What comes to mind are those orange tip laws mandating that airsoft guns must be manufactured with an orange tip to differentiate them visually from real firearms. In this case, maybe there could be some mandated standardized high-viz indicator that there is a camera lens being pointed at you in wearable devices. I could see maybe allowing the high-viz element to be concealed if the mechanism concealing it also blocks the lens.
  • bigzyg33k 2mo ago
    They already have a bright light that when covered, disables the camera
    • asdff 2mo ago
      They invented an LED light that can detect when it has been covered with sharpie? That is more interesting tech to me than the rest of the hardware stack.
  • Ekaros 2mo ago
    I think mandating that all cameras have both flashing warning light and audible alarm would be good standard. Surely AI is now easily capable of eliminating those from the record so wouldn't be big deal.
• dabinat 2mo ago
  I was at a place recently that had a nude sauna. The year before a guy had been caught propping up his phone discreetly in a corner to film people, so this year their policy was that everyone had to declare their phones and switch them off before going inside. Which did very little to solve that problem, but I’m guessing confiscating everyone’s phones was too logistically difficult. My first thought was that this place is not at all ready for the onslaught of smart glasses. I worry that these will become so discreet that people will be suspicious of anyone wearing any glasses at all, even dumb ones, in a locker room or bathroom.
• fortyseven 2mo ago
  The demonizing of devices like this as "pervert glasses" incredibly fucking juvenile and obnoxious. We're going to throw out an entire concept because a handful of scumbags abuses them. This isn't serious discussion, this is just mobs of imbeciles running around with pitchforks.
  • Atheros 2mo ago
    They won't be thrown out. You'll surely be able to buy these in the future just like you can buy cell phones and fire crackers. But you can't take cell phones and fire crackers anywhere you want. You may not drive a car wherever you want, you may not carry a visible firearm wherever you want, and you may not use a backscatter X-ray machine wherever you want.
• deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
• toader 2mo ago
  Dear Meta, Please go away. Most of us were and will be better off with you. John Q. Public
• Mr_Eri_Atlov 2mo ago
  Meta, please just release a cheaper version without cameras! I have become dependent on ambient lofi where I can still hear everyone around me to keep me focused without missing anything happening around me.
• neko_ranger 2mo ago
  >ctrl-f "headphones" and "speaker" >0 results I have the meta glasses (never wear them outside because of the stigma), and the actual killer feature is the headphones, not the camera/ai stuff. Not the sound quality per se (though it's pretty good and someone else has to be really close to hear leakage on max volume), but it's nice just being able to have a pair of sunglasses on and be able to listen to music and your surroundings while on a walk or cooking without stuff jammed in your ears. And removing the camera stuff will make the glasses look nicer since less tech needed. I know there are brands that specifically do audio only glasses, but "reddit" says they're all middle quality from my research. If anyone has experience, please share.
  • Markoff 2mo ago
    if it's not in/over your ear the sound quality will be bad anyway, you have plenty of earbuds/headphones options + your preferred sunglasses, any combo will be cheaper and better than these pervert glasses
• josefritzishere 2mo ago
  This is just as bad as the Glassholes, but the glasses are less noticeable, so the users are more the pervert/pedo category.
• mnmnmn 2mo ago
  [dead]
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 2mo ago
  10 Aug 2026 08:16:25 UTC | Influencers face backlash over Meta 'pervert glasses' content | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/09/i-kept-catching-people-giving-me-dirty-looks-the-backlash-against-meta-smart-glasses https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/09/i-kept-ca... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240828 10 Aug 2026 08:35:49 UTC | 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows | https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/meta-ai/articles/pervert-glasses-backlash-against-metas-100000746.html https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/meta-ai/articles/pervert-glasses-b... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240972
• k310 2mo ago
  "Tech" has been commandeered by some mighty greedy, selfish and antisocial people. I can't say that I developed anything to liberate people. To be blunt, almost all the ideas I have come up with over the years have had the purpose of combating or undoing the damage done by the above. This concept is a panopticon. Especially given the now universal ability to disfigure, disrobe and generally destroy anyone, it's not that it violates YOUR privacy, nor MY privacy (what were you looking at? Sue Ellen Mischkie? [0] ) but that it violates EVERYONE'S privacy. Big Brother doesn't even need telescreens. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697666/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697666/