Ray-Ban’s Smart Glasses From Meta Now Support Direct Image Sharing to Instagram Stories

Meta has introduced an update for its Ray-Ban smart glasses, enhancing them with novel hands-free features, as announced this Wednesday. A standout improvement allows wearers to instantly upload a picture to their Instagram Story directly through the glasses, eliminating the need to use a smartphone.

Once a picture is captured using the smart glasses, wearers can simply command, “Hey Meta, share my last photo to Instagram,” or to capture and share a new moment in real-time, they can instruct, “Hey Meta, post a photo to Instagram.”

This feature introduction has echoes of the Snap Spectacles launch in 2016, which first gave users the ability to directly share the visuals captured via their smart eyewear to their Snapchat Stories.

Moreover, Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have been integrated with hands-free capabilities for Amazon Music and the meditation tool, Calm.

For Amazon Music enthusiasts, it’s now possible to commence music streaming by simply saying “Hey Meta, play Amazon Music,” with further abilities to manage the playback via touch or voice commands, keeping the smartphone tucked away.

For those seeking tranquility, the new integration with Calm allows users to initiate mindfulness practices and self-care sessions by voicing, “Hey Meta, play the Daily Calm,” right from their smart glasses.

Furthermore, Meta is broadening the design offerings of these smart glasses in 15 countries, encompassing the U.S., Canada, Australia, and several European nations. New styles include Skyler in Shiny Chalky Gray with Gradient Cinnamon Pink Lenses; Skyler in Shiny Black with Transitions Cerulean Blue Lenses; and Headliner Low Bridge Fit in Shiny Black with Polar G15 Lenses, all purchasable through the Meta and Ray-Ban websites.

Adding to its feature list, the smart glasses received an AI innovation a month ago, which included the deployment of multimodal AI. This enhancement lets users pose queries about their visual surroundings. For example, translating a French menu just by looking at it, thanks to the smart glass’s camera and Meta AI’s interpretive capabilities.

The overarching ambition with these launches is to transform the smart glasses into a portable AI assistant, offering capabilities that extend beyond those of a smartphone, reminiscent of the efforts seen with Humane’s Ai pin.