Before the bandwagon jumps on "Metaverse is dead", Meta is pursuing multiple headsets, devices strategy and trying to find the right Features / Price mix. Quest 2 is the most successful headset and it seem to have the perfect balance. Quest 3 although great, probably is slightly expensive for the mass market. But there will be a chatGPT moment for Metaverse in the next 5 years and Meta's strategy will pay dividends.…
Anecdotal but of the few people that showed me their smart ray bans, 0 actually wear them, let alone use the smart functionality.
> It's Ray-ban smart glasses is already a huge hit. Sure, "huge hit". Anecdote but the only time Ive ever seen anyone wear one was when I interviewed at meta and one of the folks interviewing me was wearing them.
Also, completely anecdotal, but the only people I’ve ever seen wearing them are Facebook employees.
Before the bandwagon jumps on "Metaverse is dead", Meta is pursuing multiple headsets, devices strategy and trying to find the right Features / Price mix. Quest 2 is the most successful headset and it seem to have the perfect balance. Quest 3 although great, probably is slightly expensive for the mass market. But there will be a chatGPT moment for Metaverse in the next 5 years and Meta's strategy will pay dividends.…
If anything, what I’ve heard from friends at or adjacent to Meta is that they’re paring back metaverse ambitions and capabilities on their future devices because of the success of the Ray-Bans glasses and the relatively middling sales of the Quest 3. The Ray-Bans are also a weird anomaly since they’re leaning on the Ray-Bans designer pricing to justify a lot of the cost. If you’re already buying a pair of luxury sung…
I'm constantly losing, scratching, or breaking sunglasses. I buy them at $30 tops, not $300.
> It's Ray-ban smart glasses is already a huge hit. Sure, "huge hit". Anecdote but the only time Ive ever seen anyone wear one was when I interviewed at meta and one of the folks interviewing me was wearing them.
Here's Nat Friedman saying he's a DAU of them: https://x.com/natfriedman/status/1796986709751759304
> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? That's exactly it, they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. This is the same problem that plagues the AI assistant devices - it doesn't matter what they can do, they won't replace your smartphone. Which means you're asking someone to carry (and pay for) a smartphone + an extra device. That's a big ask. It's also the reaso…
> they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. I disagree. If LinkedIn made AR glasses that told me who the person is I’m looking at (that I’m connected to on LinkedIn) and why/how we were connected, I’d buy that in a heartbeat.
> If LinkedIn made AR glasses that told me who the person is I’m looking
I could only hope that the EU would ban it ASAP if such a product existed making it unviable anywhere else. Except maybe China and such, should be pretty useful for the CCP enforcement agencies.
The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term…
> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? That's exactly it, they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. This is the same problem that plagues the AI assistant devices - it doesn't matter what they can do, they won't replace your smartphone. Which means you're asking someone to carry (and pay for) a smartphone + an extra device. That's a big ask. It's also the reaso…
Disagree, I’ve been coordinating a lot of things lately–house projects, social events, travel, healthcare, work, etc etc–and have basically had a phone glued to my hand, which means i’m one hand down and constantly cranking my neck. if i could go hands free and be able to mind tasks, even menial ones like laundry and cooking, while researching things online, going through phone menus, messaging with people etc, it would really help. i think we are getting really close to that capability with chatgpt voice mode, we just need a piece of hardware that can bridge the gap.
But there are so many things that can't be done without visual & audio context. I can't hold my smartphone camera up all day to capture and serialize useful data. AI just made the value proposition for smartglasses 10x.
Why do you need to "capture and serialize useful data?" Wouldn't it be more fun to just be present where you're at?
Wouldn't it be more fun to smash up your iPhone and be present where you're at?
Honestly, this is a shame, because I think a lot of the vision pro's flaws are Apple problems.
That said, meta seems to have found a sweet spot in price/performance, so maybe in a few generations we will have something with the quality of vision pro that is not locked down