But unlike the Humane Ai Pin or the Rabbit R1, the Ray-Ban Meta are not autonomous. They’re meant to pair with your phone, which seems like a more honest argument for what devices like this can currently achieve on their own: they’re better thought of as new toys to tinker with rather than a replacement serious about your phone.
What you can actually use when traveling: ChatGPT or, finally, a local guide
You don’t need to go to the absurd extent of wearing a voice assistant-enabled camera on your glasses to get context for what you’re looking at. If you really want to interrogate a chatbot to see if it’s telling you the truth, all the major ones, from ChatGPT to Gemini, have mobile apps where you can ask questions about photos taken with your phone. At the end of July, ChatGPT began rolling out its advanced vocal capabilities.
Better yet, if you really want to experience a destination, why not try something a little more analog? Just talk to a few locals or even connect with an expert guide.
In summary, the near future already seems to be in our pockets
Few new gadgets are perfect from the start. “There are growing pains with any type of first-generation product,” acknowledges Chokkattu of Wired. But if we pay for them, we should expect them to work, he says. Considering that many of these new devices remain plagued with problems, he found that the near future still looks a lot like the mobile devices we already own, whether they’re made by Apple or Samsung, or even by the manufacturer. Motorola Hot Pink Razr, which returns with a Google Gemini infusion. “Overall, I just don’t think we’re anywhere close to a future in which the phone itself disappears.”
This is where Apple Long-awaited announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference June 10 outlined a less bright future, notably an improved Siriwho will now be able to connect with ChatGPT thanks to a new partnership with OpenAIand a host of automations and software features coming soon to iPhones. Perhaps then the most likely AI wearables are actually your Siri-enabled AirPods and smartwatch, which seem better suited to handling more complex prompts, such as live translation or giving you context in time real when you walk in an unknown city. (In the same spirit, Google unveiled a series of announcements in May to bring its own competing AI features to mobile devices.)
How accurate and private will these new features be, and how will they change familiar mobile interactions that seem set to evolve? These are pressing questions. But when we want answers, we’re almost certain to start with our phones, our tireless travel companions that are already in our pockets, for better or worse.