Can AI smart glasses replace your everyday prescription glasses?
AI glasses can be fitted with prescription lenses, but their weight, short battery life and privacy restrictions make them more of a secondary option than a main pair, Engadget says.
AI-powered smart glasses, which combine a camera, microphones and other built-in technology, are growing popular, and many people who wear glasses daily wonder whether they could replace their prescription pair. Tech outlet Engadget concludes that prescription lenses can be fitted, but that such glasses are not yet the best choice for everyday wear.
The prescription is not the obstacle
Smart glasses usually look much like ordinary ones. A pair of Ray-Ban Meta, made by Meta together with Ray-Ban, is hard to tell apart from regular glasses at a distance. That means the lenses can be swapped for prescription ones. Ray-Ban lets customers order Meta's smart glasses with prescription lenses already installed: you only upload your prescription.
Weight and battery
Regular glasses typically weigh 20 to 30 grams (0.7 to 1.1 ounces), while smart glasses can weigh up to 80 grams (2.7 ounces). A few hours is fine, but the weight becomes noticeable over a full day. AI glasses last on average 3 to 5 hours on a charge. When the battery dies they still work as ordinary glasses, but the AI features are lost.
Privacy concerns
Engadget argues the biggest obstacle is privacy. Wearing AI glasses in public is not illegal, but the list of places banning them keeps growing. Courts in England and Wales have banned Meta glasses from courtrooms, and New York followed in July. Many schools around the world prohibit students from wearing them in class, and there are reports of bans in workplaces.
The camera is the main worry, but audio can also be a problem: a real-time translation feature could upload confidential conversations to a third-party server. Meta has faced scrutiny for letting outsourced workers access intimate images and videos captured by its glasses. The company says content is sometimes reviewed by humans to improve the product. A German nonprofit has already filed a criminal complaint over the privacy of Meta's glasses.
For someone who needs glasses to see properly, being barred from wearing them becomes a serious problem.
