The latest in wearable assistive technology is Meta AI glasses. Today, Alejandra “Ale” Gonzalez, BridgingApps Digital Navigator, shares her experience training clients on this technology.
The Meta AI glasses are smart glasses with a Meta AI assistant. They provide hands-free help with various tasks:
- Making phone calls
- Sending text messages
- Asking questions by voice command (including questions/commands about immediate surroundings, e.g., “Translate this sign into English”)
- Describing surroundings
- Connecting to apps like Be My Eyes and Aira Explorer
These glasses are particularly useful for individuals who are visually impaired or blind. I’ve heard people say that they especially appreciate having the AI when they start a call with a Be My Eyes (an app that contacts human volunteers, who then describe the user’s surroundings). With AI glasses, they don’t have to worry about whether they have their phone facing the right way—they just turn their head in the right direction.
Training the Clients
My favorite group of Meta-AI-using clients is a group of five ladies who started attending Open Labs after a Visually Impaired Advocates (VIA) Group presentation. They wanted assistance setting up their Meta AI glasses.
We practiced several tasks:
- Connecting Be My Eyes, Aira, and Messenger to the glasses
- Starting a Be My Eyes call
- Reading a cookbook
- Navigating office surroundings to find a bathroom
- Using voice commands to send a message
- Stopping and ending calls using the glasses’ built-in touchpad
- Asking general questions
The clients liked doing this at Open Lab, where they had someone to help them troubleshoot.
Initially, one of the clients had access to live AI sessions, so we were able to trial that feature. Live AI is a great tool: it helped the client quickly and easily ask multiple questions about her surroundings to find exactly what she needed. Unfortunately, the client’s early access to live AI ended rather quickly: it’s a relatively new feature, and long-term access is only available in certain parts of North America. (Also unavailable right now: languages other than English.) However, I helped all five clients sign up to beta-test the live AI feature once it’s available in Texas.
Meta Compared to OrCam
The only comparable technology I know of is OrCam MyEye, which does have some features that Meta AI glasses lack: for example, OrCam can be trained to recognize as well as describe human faces, and it can operate without an active Wi-Fi signal. That said, Meta AI is quite adequate for most users. It’s also much less expensive than OrCam—as low as $300 for a new pair of glasses, or $100 for a refurbished pair.
I look forward to introducing more clients to Meta AI glasses, especially once live AI becomes a standard feature.