For years, weekend bike rides have been sacred escapes for me. Each pedal stroke helps soften away the stressors that piled up all through the week, and I’ve collected a couple of devices that make these rides higher. Nevertheless, I’ve discovered the onerous means that bringing alongside an excessive amount of gear takes away from the experience itself, forcing you to handle a community of pings and battery ranges as a substitute of simply using the rattling bike.
Enter Ray-Ban Meta: good glasses that made my weekend rides less complicated and a bit extra enjoyable.
As a substitute of carrying sun shades, a pair of headphones, and fumbling round with my telephone to take pictures all through the experience, I now have one system that helps with all the pieces.
The Ray-Ban Meta good glasses have been a shock hit with extra of us than simply me — Meta says it has bought thousands and thousands of those gadgets, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg lately mentioned gross sales have tripled within the final 12 months.
A number of Reddit threads and YouTube movies counsel that numerous of us are carrying Ray-Ban Meta glasses whereas biking. Meta has caught on as nicely — it’s reportedly constructing a subsequent technology of AI good glasses with Oakley, particularly constructed for athletes.
I by no means anticipated to make use of my Ray-Ban Metas on the bike. However a couple of months in the past, I made a decision to attempt them out.
Now, I put on these glasses on bike rides greater than wherever else. Meta received simply sufficient issues proper with these good glasses to persuade me there’s one thing right here. It’s virtually a pleasure to make use of, and with a couple of upgrades, it may get there.
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Berkeley, CA
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June 5
A key promoting level of Ray-Ban Meta is that they’re only a strong pair of Ray-Ban sun shades — mine are the Wayfarer fashion with transition lenses and a transparent plastic physique.
I discovered these work nicely for bike rides, defending my eyes from the solar, filth, and pollen. They sit comfortably beneath a motorcycle helmet — however perhaps not completely. (Extra on that later.)
The killer function of Meta’s good glasses is the digital camera that sits above your proper and left eyes. The glasses enable me to seize pictures and movies of issues I see on my rides simply by urgent a button on the highest proper nook of the frames, as a substitute of fumbling with my telephone — one thing that feels barely cumbersome and harmful on the bike.
Whereas using by Golden Gate Park in San Francisco final weekend, I used the Ray-Ban Meta glasses to snap pictures of the gorgeous Blue Heron Lake, the shrub-covered dunes the place the park meets the Pacific Ocean, and the tree-covered monitor that sits on the park’s entrance.
Is the digital camera wonderful? No. Nevertheless it’s fairly good, and I find yourself capturing moments I merely by no means would have if I weren’t carrying the glasses. For that motive, I don’t see the digital camera as a substitute for my telephone’s digital camera, however quite a solution to seize extra pictures and movies altogether.
The function I take advantage of essentially the most: the open-ear audio system within the arms of the glasses, which permit me to hearken to podcasts and music with out blocking the noise of individuals, bikers, and automobiles round me. Meta was removed from the primary firm to place audio system in glasses — Bose has had a strong pair for years. However Meta’s tackle open-ear audio system is surprisingly good. I’ve been impressed by the audio high quality and the way little I miss conventional headphones on these rides.
I’ve discovered myself chatting with Meta’s AI assistant a bit on my weekend rides. I lately requested it questions in regards to the nature I used to be seeing all through the park — equivalent to “Hey, Meta, look and inform me what sort of tree that is?” — in addition to the origins of the historic buildings I noticed.
I sometimes use bike rides as a solution to unplug from the world, so it appeared counterintuitive to speak with an AI chatbot throughout the rides. Nevertheless, I discovered these quick queries stoked my curiosity in regards to the world round me with out sucking me right into a rabbit gap of content material and notifications, which is what normally occurs after I use my telephone.
And, once more, the best factor about these options is all of them are available one system.
Which means fewer issues to cost, much less litter in my biking gear field, and fewer gadgets to handle alongside my experience.
Potholes
Whereas the Ray-Ban Meta glasses look nice for strolling round, they clearly weren’t designed with biking in thoughts.
Oftentimes, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses fall down my nostril throughout a bumpy experience. Once I’m bent over on the bike and searching as much as see what’s forward of me, the thick frames block my view. (Most sun shades for cyclists have skinny frames and nostril pads to resolve these issues.)
There are some limitations round how the Ray-Ban Meta glasses work with different apps, which is an issue. Whereas I like taking pictures and pausing music with the glasses, for the rest, my telephone has to come back out of my pocket.
For instance, Ray-Ban Meta has a Spotify integration, however I had a tough time getting the AI assistant to play particular playlists. Generally, the glasses performed nothing after I requested for a playlist or performed the improper playlist altogether.
I’d like to see these integrations improved — and expanded to incorporate extra biking-specific integrations with apps like Strava or Garmin.
Ray-Ban Meta additionally doesn’t work tremendous nicely with the remainder of my iPhone, which is probably going because of Apple’s restrictive insurance policies.
I’d love to have the ability to hearth off texts or simply navigate by Apple Maps with my Ray-Ban Meta glasses, however options like that is probably not out there till Apple releases its personal good glasses.
That leaves Meta’s AI assistant. The AI function is usually touted as the principle promoting level of those glasses, however I usually discovered it missing.
Meta’s voice AI isn’t as spectacular as different voice AI merchandise from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google. Its AI voices really feel extra robotic, and I discover its solutions are much less dependable.
I examined the lately launched Ray-Ban Meta’s reside video AI classes, which have been first unveiled finally 12 months’s Meta Join convention. The function streams reside video and audio from Ray-Ban Meta into an AI mannequin within the cloud, aiming to create a extra seamless solution to work together along with your AI assistant and letting it “see” what you see. In actuality, it was a hallucinated scorching mess.
I requested Ray-Ban Meta to establish a few of the fascinating automobiles I used to be biking previous close to my condominium. The glasses described a contemporary Ford Bronco as a classic Volkswagen Beetle, despite the fact that the 2 look nothing alike. Later, the glasses confidently informed me {that a} Eighties BMW was a Honda Civic. Nearer, however nonetheless very totally different automobiles.
Throughout the reside AI session, I requested the AI to assist establish some crops and timber. The AI informed me a eucalyptus tree was an oak tree. Once I mentioned, “No, I believe that’s a eucalyptus tree,” the AI responded, “Oh yeah, you’re proper.” Experiences like that make me query why I’m speaking to AI in any respect.
Google DeepMind and OpenAI are additionally engaged on multimodal AI classes just like the one which Meta gives with its good glasses. However for now, the experiences appear removed from completed.
I actually wish to see an improved model of AI good glasses that I can tackle bike rides. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are some of the convincing AI gadgets I’ve seen but, and I may see how carrying them on a experience could be a pleasure after a couple of key upgrades.
