Translations play through the glasses’ open-ear speakers and appear as transcripts in the Meta AI app. The feature is available on both Gen 1 and Gen 2 models.
Live Captions and Translation in Your Line of Sight
Zuckerberg also announced the Ray-Ban Display, the company’s first smart glasses with a high-resolution in-lens display. The glasses come with the Meta Neural Band, “an EMG wristband that translates the signals created by your muscle activity into commands for your glasses.”
Ray-Ban Display’s highlight is in-lens captions and translation. Unlike Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1 and Gen 2) which route transcripts to the Meta AI app, Display lets captions appear directly in the lens — or in the app, depending on the user’s choice.
The same applies to translation, with speech translated directly in the lens so users can “stay present” without looking down at a device.
“When prompted, it can display captions for the speech that’s directed at you, or translate select languages for you in real-time,” Meta explained.
“If you have an issue hearing, then I think that this is gonna be a game changer,” Zuckerberg said during the live demo.
Smart Glasses Support Vision and Hearing Needs
Meta continues to emphasize accessibility, highlighting use cases for people with reduced vision, hearing, or mobility. Blind and low-vision users, including Blinded Veterans across the US, are using Meta’s glasses to describe their surroundings into audio descriptions.
The VA Blind Rehabilitation Centers are issuing Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and the Blinded Veterans Association is developing a guide to help veterans integrate the technology into daily life.
Meta also pointed to its partnership with Be My Eyes — announced at Meta Connect 2024 — which connects blind and low-vision users with sighted volunteers, who can “see” on their behalf through the glasses and provide real-time assistance with various tasks.
Hear Better in Noisy Environments with Conversation Focus
Meta also introduced conversation focus, a new feature designed to help users hear better in noisy environments.
“Conversation focus uses your AI glasses’ open-ear speakers to amplify the voice of the person you’re talking to,” Meta explained.
By reducing background noise and overlapping speech, and amplifying the speaker’s voice, this feature is also expected to improve captioning and translation accuracy in real-world conditions.
It will be rolled out via software update to Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 and Oakley HSTN models. For now, it remains unclear whether the Display model will support the new feature.
