At Meta Connect, the company’s smart glasses were everywhere

在 Meta Connect 大会上，该公司的智能眼镜无处不在

If there was one thing that was obvious from Meta Connect this year, it’s that the social media giant is all-in on its burgeoning line of smart glasses. Indeed, the glasses were pretty much everywhere at the annual event, where Meta shows off its newest hardware and AI products. Both Meta staff and the flocks of influencers who frequent the event seemed to arrive with the glasses glued to their faces. Most of the demos the company offered this week also involved the glasses.

如果说今年的 Meta Connect 大会传达了一个明确的信号，那就是这家社交媒体巨头正全力投入其蓬勃发展的智能眼镜产品线。事实上，在这场展示 Meta 最新硬件和 AI 产品的年度盛会上，智能眼镜几乎随处可见。Meta 的员工和成群结队的网红们似乎都戴着眼镜出席活动。本周公司提供的大多数演示也都与这些眼镜有关。

I swiftly joined the bespectacled masses and found myself trying on pair after pair of Meta’s high-tech specs. One of the more notable products I had an opportunity to demo were Meta’s new, still-unreleased, audio-only smart glasses. News of these glasses emerged not long after the company weathered accusations that it was selling “pervert glasses,” with critics alleging that its camera-equipped specs could be used for nefarious surveillance purposes.

我迅速加入了这群“眼镜族”，试戴了一副又一副 Meta 的高科技眼镜。我有机会体验的最引人注目的产品之一，是 Meta 即将推出、尚未发布的一款纯音频智能眼镜。此前，该公司曾因其配备摄像头的眼镜被指控为“变态眼镜”，批评者称其可能被用于非法监控，而这款新眼镜的消息正是在此风波后不久传出的。

The new glasses come equipped with six microphones, but no camera, and they have no native way to record your surroundings, which should go a long way toward easing privacy concerns. They are significantly lighter than any of the other smart glasses I’ve worn, and they were quite comfortable. The Meta staffer I talked to emphasized the glasses’ entertainment and communication options: You can listen to music easily (they’re more comfortable than earbuds) and take phone calls without reaching for your phone.

这款新眼镜配备了六个麦克风，但没有摄像头，也没有原生录制周围环境的功能，这在很大程度上缓解了隐私担忧。它们比我戴过的任何其他智能眼镜都要轻得多，而且非常舒适。与我交谈的 Meta 员工强调了这款眼镜的娱乐和通讯功能：你可以轻松听音乐（比耳塞更舒适），并在不触碰手机的情况下接听电话。

The glasses will also integrate with Muse, Meta’s personal agentic system, which can carry out tasks on the user’s behalf. The new integration, which isn’t yet available to the public, lets wearers speak to Muse and give it commands verbally. Meta also plans to personalize the agent, letting users pick from an assortment of cute digital avatars that can represent the agent when it communicates with them.

这款眼镜还将集成 Meta 的个人代理系统 Muse，该系统可以代表用户执行任务。这一尚未向公众开放的新集成功能，允许佩戴者通过语音与 Muse 对话并下达指令。Meta 还计划对该代理进行个性化设置，让用户从各种可爱的数字头像中进行选择，这些头像可以在代理与用户交流时代表它。

I was given an opportunity to try this out, which was fun but also somewhat comical. You have to be very direct with the agent, and you can’t talk to anyone else at the same time or it will get confused. Problematically, I kept chatting intermittently with the Meta staffer who’d given me the glasses, and the agent kept thinking I was speaking to it, so it would talk over her. Still, in the right context, it’s easy to see how this new integration could be incredibly useful.

我有机会试用了这个功能，过程既有趣又有点滑稽。你必须非常直接地与代理沟通，而且不能同时与其他人交谈，否则它会感到困惑。麻烦的是，我一直在与给我眼镜的 Meta 员工断断续续地聊天，而代理总以为我在跟它说话，所以它会打断我们。不过，在合适的场景下，不难看出这种新集成功能将会有多么实用。

If you don’t mind being seen in public talking to your own sunglasses, you’ll be able to ask Muse to take care of various digital tasks for you, like sending emails or reciting to-do lists, and it will handle them while you’re out grocery shopping or having a beer. You can also ask the glasses anything, and like a mobile version of ChatGPT, they’ll spit out an answer. (I asked the glasses a question about World War II, and they gave me a succinct and historically accurate response.)

如果你不介意在公共场合对着自己的太阳镜说话，你就可以让 Muse 为你处理各种数字任务，比如发送电子邮件或朗读待办事项清单，它可以在你外出购物或喝啤酒时帮你搞定这些事。你还可以问眼镜任何问题，就像移动版的 ChatGPT 一样，它会给出答案。（我问了眼镜一个关于二战的问题，它给出了简洁且符合历史事实的回答。）

Finally, I also got to test-drive a second audio-only pair: Meta’s new glasses for the hearing impaired. Given that hearing loss affects many families (some 50 million Americans are said to have some level of hearing loss), this device, unlike a lot of other modern tech gadgets, serves a clear and practical purpose.

最后，我还试用了第二款纯音频眼镜：Meta 为听力受损人士设计的新款眼镜。考虑到听力损失影响着许多家庭（据称约有 5000 万美国人有不同程度的听力损失），与许多其他现代科技产品不同，这款设备具有明确且实用的用途。

I spoke briefly with a member of Meta’s research team who said the glasses had been in development for about five years, and he pointed out a price difference that could make them appealing: Whereas a lot of hearing aids can run as high as $1,600, the glasses will sell for $150. The experience of wearing these glasses was interesting. Meta had me put earplugs in before trying them on to simulate the hearing loss that the glasses are meant to help users overcome.

我与 Meta 研究团队的一名成员进行了简短交谈，他表示这款眼镜已经开发了大约五年，并指出其价格差异可能使其具有吸引力：许多助听器的价格高达 1600 美元，而这款眼镜的售价仅为 150 美元。佩戴这些眼镜的体验很有趣。Meta 让我在试戴前戴上耳塞，以模拟眼镜旨在帮助用户克服的听力损失。

Once the glasses were on, they seemed to amplify the voice of the person I was talking to. Users can switch the amplification from focused, which zeroes in on the person in front of them, to omnidirectional, which picks up sound from all around them, depending on how they want to experience their surroundings.

戴上眼镜后，它们似乎放大了我交谈对象的声音。用户可以根据自己想要体验周围环境的方式，将放大模式从“聚焦”（锁定面前的人）切换到“全向”（拾取周围的声音）。

Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear that he believes smart glasses are the future, and it’s evident that his company is doing its best to fulfill that vision. But smart glasses remain a niche that has yet to truly find its footing. What was most obvious at Connect is that Meta has — in an attempt to succeed where others have failed — cast a very wide net, trying to make its glasses stylish, functional, and, most of all, useful. Is this the future? Unsurprisingly, everyone at Connect seemed to think so. I suppose we’ll have to see if the rest of the world follows suit.

马克·扎克伯格已经明确表示，他相信智能眼镜就是未来，很明显他的公司正在尽最大努力实现这一愿景。但智能眼镜仍然是一个尚未真正站稳脚跟的利基市场。在 Connect 大会上最明显的一点是，Meta 为了在别人失败的地方取得成功，撒下了一张大网，试图让其眼镜既时尚、功能齐全，最重要的是——实用。这就是未来吗？不出所料，Connect 大会上的每个人似乎都这么认为。我想，我们还得看看世界其他地方是否会跟进。