The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses have received a major upgrade. In Meta's push to make the photo-enabled smart glasses even smarter, the camera-enabled AI feature is rolling out to all users as a beta version. New video calling capabilities and new frame shapes are other updates to the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, highlighted in a video shared by Mark Zuckerberg on Instagram.

By using what it sees through the glasses' camera, Meta AI can provide insight into what is in front of it. The assistant can identify objects, provide landmark information, and even translate languages encountered during travel. As we introduced a few months ago, Meta AI can even look at your wardrobe and choose the right clothes for you.

As competition among AI hardware products intensifies, Meta's glasses hope to serve you through sight. But is proxy vision a solution to avoid the negative publicity that has marred the Humane AI Pin's launch? Certainly the Humane AI Pin has a camera for similar object identification and setting descriptions, but there is no friction with the camera being at eye level, "Hey Meta, look and..." is all it takes to get a private response from the glasses' speaker.

In recent months, we have experimented with multimodal AI integration through limited beta access and have found it to be mostly successful at identifying. For example, the Meta AI was able to name several New York City landmarks simply by taking a photo through its glasses. However, it doesn't get it right every time, and it can be a headache to connect, as the reviewer of the Humane AI Pin reported.

That said, the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses have a lot more to offer than just AI, which is what makes them more appealing to the average techie like me who is not ready to carry a gadget dedicated solely to AI. My favorite feature is that the glasses can take high-quality photos and videos in no time, as I found out when I compared it to the iPhone 15 Pro Max camera on a trip abroad. There have been several instances where hands-free photos have come in handy, such as when I was riding my bike or visiting a bird sanctuary.

But besides capturing content for storage, the glasses can also connect to Instagram and be used for the Live Stream feature in the app. And new to this update, apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger now allow users to switch to Ray-Ban's camera during video calls to show what they are seeing from their perspective. It's like live streaming, but visible to the person you're chatting with; Meta says this is useful for everything from calling a friend to a concert to showing your mother the ingredients at the grocery store to make sure you're bringing home the right items.

Good looks are a big perk of the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. They look like regular designer glasses. As part of the update, Meta and its design partner Ray-Ban also unveiled new designs that customers can choose from on the Ray-Ban Remix customization platform. The Cat Eye Skylar frame joins the existing Headliner and Wayfarer styles and introduces fresh lens and frame color options. Headliner frames now offer a low bridge option for a more comfortable fit on specific nose and face shapes.

Meta cautions users on this blog that the multimodal AI feature is still in beta, so there may be times when the Meta AI "doesn't get things exactly right." devices like the Humane AI Pin, where the AI feature does not work as advertised, Whereas many others do not, Ray-Ban's Meta Smart Glasses have other use cases that are worth getting.

Not to say that every gadget needs to do dozens of things in one, but if it does one thing, it better do it well, and Meta seems to be giving AI room for improvement by starting with a beta experience for all users, while continuing to improve in the area of glasses that are already doing well They seem to be giving it a go.