It’s six months since my initial review of the Meta Ray Ban Glasses, so time to for an update with this Blind Meta Ray Ban Review. Read the initial Blind Meta Ray Ban Review, which covers the basics. This review is focusing on changes and the WhatsApp bots that enhance the functionality for the blind and low vision community.
What are Meta Ray Ban Smart Glasses?
A quick reminder, Meta teamed up with the iconic Ray Ban sunglasses brand to bring smart glasses to the world. These are a follow on to the Meta Stories which allowed people to capture photos and videos. The Meta Ray Bans built on this success and added Meta AI, an AI chat bot allowing you to ask questions and to use the camera as a source of input. This allows for questions like ‘Hey Meta, look and describe the scene’, initiating the camera followed by a description of your surroundings.
Being Ray Ban glasses they provide a couple of styles but a whole range of lenses including prescription options to fit your specific needs. The glasses have a built-in 12 megapixel camera discretely placed in the corner of the frames. The glasses arms contain speakers that allow you to listen to responses, play music and make calls using the five built in microphones. The battery lasts up to 4 hours with a further 36 hours available by placing them in the supplied case to charge.
What have I been using the Ray Bans for?
The Meta Ray Ban glasses have been extremely useful, however Meta AI stopped being available in the UK shortly after my last article and has only recently become available again. During that time I used these features regularily:
- Bluetooth speakers in the glasses arms, allowing for listening while still allowing the wearer to hear the outside world. Great for navigation.
- Ability to recieve and send messages hands free via text, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.
- Ability to take photos and videos with a simple click or voice command.
- Ability to ask Meta to take a photo and send it to a contact in Whats App or Facebook Messenger.
- Make a video call to a Whats App contact and share the view from your glassses. This is super useful for assistance, allowing you to keep your hands free while getting sighted help.
- Calling a Be My Eyes Volunteer hands free.
- Using Aira via a WhatsApp call
These are all fantastic features and provide very useful, but the promise of AI greatness was missing.
What is new for Blind Meta Ray Ban?
Earlier this month Meta AI Look and Tell become available in the UK again, it is much improved on the early experience I had. It is very fast to respond when I ask it to look and read the box in front of me. It is very useful but, there is always a but, you need to be specific with your prompts and may need to ask several times to get the information you need. This is the worst it will ever be, and there is no doubt that this will get better.
In the US, there is a live mode available in beta, where it is looking all the time and doesn’t need to take a photo and then respond. This is an improvement, but will consume more battery power and still requires you to prompt it. The ideal of being able to ask the glasses to tell you when a bus approaches is still some time away.
While Meta AI wasn’t available fully in the UK, we saw the release of WhatsApp Bots from ChatGPT, PiccyBot and NOA Chat from biped.ai.
ChatGPT WhatsApp Bot
ChatGPT launched a WhatsApp bot that you can chat with in WhatsApp, sending it images and asking for descriptions. My initial thought was that I don’t need this, I have the app – then it dawned on me that I can send messages and images from my Meta Ray Ban’s to ChatGPT and get responses hands free.
Setting ChatGPT WhatsApp Bot up:
- Add 1-800-242-8478 to your phones contacts and call it ChatGPT
- Go into WhatsApp and start a conversation with ChatGPT, it will respond.
- Now you can way “Hey Meta, send a message to ChatGPT” and message ChatGPT hands free.
It is great having ChatGPT available, but note that it often returns more text than can be read by the glasses and you may need to prompt a response with a limit or pick up your phone.
PiccyBot WhatsApp Bot
PiccyBot is an app designed specifically for the blind and low vision community. It is extremely powerful and provides users with the option for using multiple AI models to describe images and videos. The developer has extended the service to provide a WhatsApp Bot.
Setting up PiccyBot WhatsApp Bot:
- Register for PiccyBot: PiccyBot Registration Form
- You will get a WhatsApp Message, Save the Contact as PiccyBot
- To send a photo, you say “Hey Meta, take a photo and send it to PiccyBot.”
- To send a video, say “Hey Meta, take a video.” → Say “Stop” to finish recording. After stopping, say: “Send the latest video to PiccyBot.”(Videos are limited to 15 seconds.)
Full instructions on the PiccyBot Website
With PiccyBot being specific for the blind and low vision community, it is an excellent service and knows the message limits, customising the responses to the bounds of Meta Ray Ban constraints.
NOA Chat by Biped AI WhatsApp Bot
Biped AI are known for their AI power navigation wearables and have brought that experience and technology to WhatsApp with NOA Chat.
It is disappointing the the video by biped isn’t audio described.
Setting up NOA Chat WhatsApp Bot:
- Add the NOA Chat Contact or add +1 (406) 612-4108 to your phones contacts.
- Send an image to NOA to check you get a response.
- Now you can ask Meta to send an image to this contact for a description.
There is no denying that the navigation responses are fantastic, but this service is limited to 15 requests a week and then requires a subscription.
Blind Meta Ray Ban Considerations
It is great to have tech at a considerably lower cost than specialist tech, currently about £300 a pair, but this is still a lot of money for something we could easily damage – walking into a tree branch, sitting on them, etc.
The battery life does lead to some trepidation of running out. Having the case to charge them works really well, but taking them off and on to keep them charged during the day is a pain, especially if you need them to block the light. I have a pair of Oho Sunshine bluetooth glasses that just fit in the case, so I can swap between them and mitigate this a little.
Internet connection is needed, so if you are deep in a supermarket you may find there isn’t a connection to be able to do what you need. I believe many supermarkets provide wifi, but you will need to factor this in and ensure you are setup before you start shopping.
The glasses remove some of the difficulty in taking photos and videos, making it easy for us to capture with a single click and be pointing in the right direction. They won’t rival the quality of a phone camera, but they are reasonable. Some blind users are using them to help capture incidents or barriers as they come across them.
Would I Recommend Them?
After 6 months of using the glasses, my answer is the same. Yes, I would recommend the Meta Ray Ban smart glasses. Meta AI is improving, all the time, and with the additional WhatsApp bots the functionality is increasing. My only caution is that there are new glasses from Meta rumoured later in 2025 and we are seeing other blind specific glasses in development, such as the Agiga Echo Vision Glasses, so if you are on a budget and not in a rush, waiting for this hype cycle to pass and the market to settle may be wise.
Tell me what you think in the comments below or on X @timdixon82
