The Ray-Ban target screen is more impressive than I imagined

I have had an interest in the Geta Smart Ray-BAN glasses since I could try them in the goal Connect 2023. As someone who had undergone a LASIK procedure not long before him, he was certainly open to decent sunglasses, especially if they had all these social characteristics such as those offered by goal. However, ultimately, my colleague Dean Daley ended up checking the glasses for us.

Naturally, then I was anxious to test the next evolution of these glasses in this year’s Connect goal, the Ray-Ban target screen. As the name implies, add a virtual screen in the lens through which you can use several applications. Before his ad during the key note of Connect, I had to go practical with the screen and came out quite impressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz9isb72nvk

First, it should be emphasized that this is No The orion prototype of augmented reality that target mocked last year. (The company says it is still in process). Instead, take the base frame of the Standard Ray-Ban Glasses and add the screen. At the same time, however, it is not a warning screen of Iron Man Armor-Esque (HUD) inside its glasses; It is a decidedly minimalist overlap that does not occupy much space. But if you have all this in mind when it enters, the screen makes a first solid impression.

Above all, it is quite intuitive. All you have to do is put in the Full Neural Band, an EMG bracelet (electromyography) that tracks your gestures according to muscle activity. From there, you can slide and pinch your fingers in different directions to navigate the screen on the lens without the need to touch the screen itself or get your phone.

In fact, Meta says that he wants the glasses to allow you to remain “attentive” in the world that surrounds you instead of playing on a second screen. For the most part, I would say it has been successful. It is true that the gestures of the fingers sometimes found the gestures of the fingers, and the screen apparently did not record a good part of my entries. I suspect that this will improve once you acclimate this unorthodox control scheme more. (For example, I finally learned that the index finger and thumb and rotating maneuver to control the camera zoom and volume levels required a fairly firm push).

But once you start it, it is quite agile. With only simple slides of your thumb, you can move through the eyelashes, while the finger/thumb combo mentioned above will select an option. What is particularly ordered is that you don’t really have to raise your hand or keep it in view of the glasses. Because it is linked to the bracelet, you can simply keep it by your side or even behind your back and still register tickets.

One of the goal characteristics AI. (Image credit: goal)

That said, there is no option to adjust the size of the screen, which is a fairly frustrating restriction. It is possible that this is reduced to the monocular configuration of the screen, but in any case, I found myself wanting to make it a little larger. Since I have used the goal Quest 3, which makes it easy to change the size of Windows, I thought the screen would have some similar option. It is particularly limiting here because, unlike virtual reality, which creates a completely new world, these smart glasses use and place the screen on their real world pov, which means that it can be difficult to see sometimes, depending on the background. I hope that some customization option will arrive in a future update or, in the worst case, a posterior visualization model.

But where the lack of display screen size options, the amplitude of applications and features certainly not. Of course, it has its photos and videos options thanks to the 12 megapixel ultrawide camera that can capture media in up to 3K, as well as the Ray-Ban base models. However, the great improvement is the characteristic of pinch to a zoom mentioned. This addresses one of the main deficiencies of the other goal rays, which lack this functionality and basically make some useless photos and videos unless it was close enough.

Another application that could be a real game change are maps. In my small demonstration space, I could not try it correctly outside the rhythm from one side to another to see that my small icon moves a bit, but the potential for this application is easy to imagine. As someone with a terrible sense of direction, having virtual directions would be a gift from heaven, especially if I am walking in a big city like Toronto or New York and does not have to worry about looking at my phone.

And, naturally, goal AI is a large part of these glasses, as with the other peers of the company. In a small guided activation, I could see some of the cases of use in goal AI. In the first room, the words “Hello goal, repressing this!” They are written on a wall with a blue sky with clouds, while a large blue -hand statue was in front of it. To say that the warning would automatically take a photo of all this and rejigate the image in something new: in my case, it was a futuristic science fiction machine instead of words and a metal glove instead of the hand. To tell the truth, I have my problems with the images that involve AI, and this seemed quite a trick.

Live subtitles. (Image credit: goal)

But the other rooms had much more practical applications, and decidedly less ethically questionable, of AI. One of these rooms was installed as a small museum, and they asked us that we enable live subtitles as our “tour guide” substitute goal about each work of art told us. Even in a small room with six people and a fairly strong fanatic, the glasses impressively collected almost all the words he said, outside a few mistakes, such as losing the name of a Swedish artist who named or saying “captains” instead of “subtitles.” In any case, it is easy to see how this could be a particular blessing for those who have hearing problems, a good addition to The existing advantages that finish striped glasses-BAN have provided visual disabled.

Meanwhile, another room showed benefits that could help anyone. Here, there were several pieces of art stylized on the walls, and they asked us to ask Meta Ai about them. “Hello goal, what is the style?” Read one of them. Once he says the words, goal will take a few seconds to get an answer, in this case, comic, and some prayers of an explanation. It also provides indications for related consultations, such as comics artists. I will return to Barcelona in a few weeks for a game event, and it is easy to see how characteristics such as this could help me navigate and learn more about the city, especially when the live translation takes to the mixture.

Navigation on the screen. (Image credit: goal)

Having said all that, I question who this is. At US $ 799 (around C $ 1,100), it is very expensive. Certainly, this is a novel technology, but you should also consider that one of the other new Connect products, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), costs C $ 520 and offers many of the same characteristics. Is the screen really worth more than double? It’s hard to say. (This means, of course, that the official Canadian price ends up being approximately the same as the current conversion rate). Since this is first generation technology, it could also be wise to wait for the next iteration.

However, if nothing else, Meta says he plans to work with retailers in several markets to offer demonstrations. Until now, that is Best Buy in the US, the only market in which the glasses will be launched in October. However, Meta says that he plans to launch the exhibition in Canada and some other markets at the beginning of 2026. With luck, the opportunity to test the glasses for you will also come here too. And by then, perhaps Meta will even have launched some new updates to build even more on glasses.

However, as it is, I am not sure they are worth (presumably) $ 1,000+, as great as they can. It is likely to go with the goal of Ray-Ban (Gen 2) if it is in the glasses market. But anyway, the goal exhibition Ray-Ban is a promising first step in the ambitious finishing plans for smart glasses, and I am anxious to see more after this.