> 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.

Why do you want this? I honestly think we’ve completely forgotten how to be present and notice the real world without the idea of augmenting it.

The glasses & software could have come from the Linux Foundation & the same concerns from people would remain.

After covid I forgot the names of coworkers, I'm really bad at remembering them. Having something that could just show me peoples names would be nice. Maybe I'm just a bad person for not remembering them and it could be a nice challenge to my existing social behaviors to ask again. I wouldn't trust meta enough to use these glasses, I dont even use instragram.

i thonk sci-fi was too focused on the tech existing and not enough about what it means to give it to people.

black mirror is a breath of fresh air in that, but even that lacks in how to think about how technology and society really interact

It’s so interesting to me that there are still so many people who see the monkey’s-paw thing as somehow secondary or incidental, even those who acknowledge that it’s often there! I don’t really understand why this is, or why I feel differently. To me at least, the monkey’s-paw aspect is primary now, to the point that the gee-whiz aspect hardly bears on my thinking at all.

I’m not telling you that I think you’re wrong or foolish, to be clear! I just have this different instinct from you, although it sounds like we basically agree on the reflective level. I’m interested in what it is that directs peoples’ attention and interest in such a way that new information technology products pattern-match to “cool, shiny, new, handy, exciting; freedom” or to “dystopian social control, creepy surveillance capitalism; unfreedom.” People have different System 1 intuitions, orthogonal to their System 2 thinking!

It’s so weird because I used to be the other way. I can’t put my finger on when or how the phase transition took place in my mind.

Startup idea: customers give you their Meta glasses, you smash the camera and microphone (with a tiny sledge hammer), and wrap most of the glasses and particularly where mic/camera would have been in a special casing with a very unique and patented design you also make a huge fuss on social media about, so everybody knows it.

The wrapper is hard/impossible to remove, only the company can trigger the self-release mechanism, and customers have to sign that they owe you a lot of money when they remove or damage it (which is risky, so they have to be careful or it's their problem). You basically just rent it to them, for lots of money per month, so they can show off their Good Guy Glasses (hey that's actually a name! can I have 10% please if anyone does this, I'll also help out if you want, maybe with the tiny sledge hammer. thanks!).

"Oh, you can afford Meta glasses to be a perv? Well, I can't afford the equivalent of a bunch of them every year, but I still do it because I'm a good person."

The ad could be some street kid in the rain with some guy (Morgan Freeman maybe) offering to sell it these glasses, saying "you can pay in tiny rates" and whatnot, and the kid just sadly shakes its head.. so the guy goes down on one knee, eye to eye with the kid and says... "When I was your age, I thought everything is about money, too. But some things are about being a good person. If you had a mommy, surely she would want you to be a good person, right?" The kid nods, still hesitates, but by the way the music swells as the ad fades you just know it's gonna be alright.

Check out the even reality g2. No camera

Bro, read the article. As much as I hate corporations, this is not there fault. It's women who don't like perverts using the glasses and the perverts who use these glasses to look at women.

This is a phenomenon among the masses of consumers who use this tech, the corporation has nothing to do with it. In fact the corporation is trying to reign in your freedom to use these tools by stopping this perverted stuff from happening. Blame US, consumers, not our corporate overlords.

Here's what I think: I think it is essential to protect freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This is just an unfortunate consequence of those freedoms. If you want to protect womens discomfort then you have to restrict these freedoms. I'm against that. This is an unfortunate situation but the alternative is worse. Because ONCE those rules are in place and codified into law, censorship and freedoms can become bigger and worse.

Women just need to deal with it. Assume that whenever you're in a public place, ALL your actions are PUBLIC. A women (and men) should dress and talk in a way conducive to the public arena.

Either way, despite what I believe, it's already to late. This freedom is already restricted by Wiretapping law. If someone threatens to kill you and you wiretap it as evidence... that evidence is dismissible in court even after said subject (you) was found dead. We are rapidly moving towards a world where a persons discomfort can control your freedoms and even dictate reality (evidence).

I think, sadly, this is the expected result.

Imagine if tomorrow we invented ubiquitous instant teleportation to arbitrary locations.

There would be a moment where we hear how great it is to eliminate commutes, or air travel, followed shortly afterwards by the collapse of civilisation as societies grapple with the elimination of property, what remains of private space, and so on.

It's platform anxiety. Meta are still frustrated that they missed out on controlling the mobile platform and have to pay those 30% fees to Google and Apple.

The metaverse was the same thing: they are willing to spend an inordinate amount of money on the chance that something new - in this case face-computers - will be the next big platform.

The users are the problem. It's not the same as gun control, but smells a bit similar. Let's revisit this when Apple ships? I wonder what the sentiment will be then.

In the meantime, I use the Metas on dog walks, take fast pics of wild life, while biking, things like that, AirPods annoy me even if I own a few pairs. I don't even like the Metas, they are too heavy on the face, they are far from attractive, but they are the only thing of its kind I can buy in the states with my vision insurance (hello, Luxotica and LensCrafters). So please, don't come at me when you see me outside, I'm simply walking my dog.

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.

I didn't see anyone else link Keiji Matsuda's "Hyper-Reality", so here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

> 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.

> where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net.

I think this is wanting a rule that doesn't draw boundaries in a way that aligns with the natural world. Your right to see what is around you and to remember what you see is pretty fundamental. You might say there is a ethical reason not to gossip about what you remember seeing, but I would push back on the idea that it ought to be illegal for Bob to mention to Carol that he saw Alice at the store, and Meta glasses (or paparazzi or even Snow Crash's gargoyles) are a difference of degree, not kind, from the neighborhood gossip.

Germany makes a distinction between expectations of privacy and being in a public space. If you’re in a cafe and talking to someone at your table, you generally do not expect others to participate and listen to your conversation, that can be enough to be considered private and would likely be illegal to record without consent. The act of recording audio is in itself restricted, though if you share you can have additional charges. I’m pretty sure that makes always-on video recording (with audio) very much incompatible with German laws.

It’s an ok system but too restrictive and outdated IMHO, so many people recording something with their phone will unwillingly record people passing by, which is likely not allowed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They already have a bright light that when covered, disables the camera

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.

How do the glasses distinguish between taking videos of your children playing at the park, and taking videos of other peoples' children playing at the park?

I'm sorry, but I was taken aback when I clicked on the link and it was met with a real vídeo of a child. I was sure that it would be a Rick Rolling link or something. Aren't you afraid of exposing your daughter to a bunch of anonymous people on the internet? I understand that you like the product, but not even Mark Zuckerberg uses his kids for marketing

Both wild but also very obviously was going to happen with a product like this.

Pick-up artists are not going to behave like decent human beings.

Even Realities G2, and MemoMind One + NIMO glasses coming soon.

Vuzix Z100 if you can find them anywhere as well...

All of these are green LED displays though, not a full color HUD.

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.

There's a kickstarter for "MemoMind One". Glasses with display and no camera.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1963472698/memomind-one...

These exist already; they're sometimes called "XR glasses." They simply act as a monitor for a connected device.

The market is maturing and the hardware is pretty cool. The software situation is pretty dire though; phone OSes don't have a way to use them effectively. Samsung Dex is probably the best experience right now to just use them as a desktop display.

How would it analyze your surroundings without a camera

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?

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).

> 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).

> 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...

https://fortune.com/2026/07/28/ray-ban-meta-pervert-glasses-...

https://thenextweb.com/news/instagram-meta-glasses-harassmen...

https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-the-ray-ban-meta-cre...

> 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

> Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me

You come off as naive.

Agreed. The article and discussion is so deja vu...

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.

The smartphone camera supply chain already made possible easy purchase of miniature spy camera devices of various types, they're all on Amazon. Sometimes they're pretending to be nanny cams or something but others are hidden body cameras or glasses. So pervert glasses already existed and were pretty cheap.

The downside with the Meta glasses really is this gives "cover" for wearing these kinds of things. If you caught some one with a pocket button camera or the cheap pervert glasses before, well you knew what they were up too. Now they can hide behind being a tech enthusiast or a trend follower or even some kind of fashion thing and wear them right out in the open, allowing nefarious use to be hidden in plain sight.

I think they tried that, and people hacked around it:

https://www.engadget.com/2227710/a-dollar2-sticker-let-me-by...

It is something that must be treated as crime. And punished actually harshly say 1 year mandatory minimum for first offence, 5 for second and then life in prison for third strike. No parole.

Then you can filter only the visible part of the signal, plus if they become common you risk interference, contamination or long term exposure (Your face regularly points to other people faces/eyes)

People already disable the recording light and the problem is so pervasive Amazon has "banned" the blocking stickers.

Create your own set of glasses with powerful IR LEDs. Then just stare at the glasshole.

It already stops working if you block the light.

If you want to do that, there is a wide variety of pre-existing recording devices available already...

I wonder if there should be a provision in the ISO 27001 about not allowing these smart glasses into the workplace

> retards

Stop it.

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.

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.

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.

No, it’s not that. It’s that people know you are wearing the pervert glasses.

> very popular and no one had a problem with them

People certainly did have a problem with them.

Absolutely wrong