Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses now support live translation and visual currency conversion. These features, which leverage Meta AI, could be useful to international travelers or expats.
Live translate was first announced at the Meta Connect conference in October 2024. The feature, which is more like a live interpreter than a translator, is pretty straightforward—start a conversation with someone, and a spoken interpretation of their language will be pumped through your Meta Ray-Ban glasses’ speakers. If they’re speaking Spanish, you’ll hear English, and so on.
That said, conversations are a two-way street. And unless you’re speaking with someone who happens to own Ray-Ban smart glasses, you need to pull out your phone to show them a written translation of your words. Plus, the live translate feature is currently limited to English, Spanish, French, and Italian, and it doesn’t work automatically, so you need to trigger it with a voice command. The good news is that you don’t need an internet connection to use live translate, so long as you download the appropriate language packs before kicking off a conversation.
“Whether you’re traveling to a new country and need to ask for directions to the train station or you’re spending quality time with a family member and need to break the language barrier, you can hold seamless conversations across English, French, Italian, and Spanish—no Wi-Fi or network connectivity required if you’ve downloaded the language pack in advance. When you’re speaking to someone in one of those languages, you’ll hear what they say in your preferred language through the glasses in real time, and they can view a translated transcript of the conversation on your phone. To get started, just say, ‘Hey Meta, start live translation.'”
Visual currency conversion, while not as groundbreaking as live translate, is also an exciting feature for international travelers. Let’s say that you’re visiting Italy and want to know how the local price of parmigiano reggiano compares to what you buy back home (I did this when visiting Europe because I love cheese). If you’re wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses, you can just stare at the price tag on the cheese, say a phrase like “hey Meta, convert this price to USD,” and the smart glasses will perform a quick currency conversion.
But currency conversion is not a standalone feature. It’s just one of the many things that you can do with Meta Live AI, a tool that’s rolling out to North America in the coming weeks. Live AI can “see” through your eyes to answer unique questions, like what bottle of wine you should pair with your meal. It’s honestly a bit of an awkward and contrived idea, at least in its current form (the above example, which I copied from Meta’s press release, is genuinely ridiculous) the AI powers some genuinely good stuff like currency conversion and will probably grow more useful when commercial smart glasses gain visual AR functionality, which Meta is actively working on.
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Along with all this travel-friendly stuff, Meta is adding the ability to direct message and make calls on Instagram from the Ray-Ban smart glasses. Similar functionality is already available for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Message, and iMessage. There are also new lens and frame color combinations for the Ray-Ban Meta Skyler frame style.
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses start at $300 and come in a wide variety of colors and styles. You can order them with prescription lenses, and there are options for polarized or Transition lenses. Note that some frame options are not available to those who, like me, have a prescription in excess of -3.5 or +3.5.
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
Embraced by the next generation of culture makers, its journey continues with AI-enhanced wearable tech. Listen, call, capture, and live stream features are seamlessly integrated within the classic frame.
