Apple’s upcoming AI smart glasses are starting to sound a lot more exciting

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Apple will “accelerate” the development of three upcoming AI wearables: smart glasses, a pendant, and AirPods with cameras. These three products are all aimed at integrating Siri deeper into our daily lives, and I will be focusing on the glasses part of it.

Apparently, Apple has always been interested in making glasses. The idea of ​​Apple making AR glasses has been in the rumor mill for years. For now, that’s on hold – and Vision Pro will have to do. Currently, the company is pursuing AI glasses, such as the Meta Ray-Bans.

Meta Ray-Bans have been trending ever since they were launched in late 2023. Despite the fact that everyone knows Meta as a company that attacks privacy, a lot of people are happy to get Meta glasses with cameras in them. On their backs, they have cameras, microphones, and speakers – allowing users to talk to Meta AI about their surroundings, listen to music, or take photos and videos.

Since last year, we first heard that Apple was working on releasing its own version of the Meta Ray-Bans next year. Now, the development has advanced a lot.

Apple is reportedly including two camera lenses: one for computer vision, and the other for taking photos and videos. The company also figured out how to embed all the components into the frame, where they originally planned to rely on an external battery.

Apple has a new trick up its sleeve

When you talk about products that rely on voice to communicate, it’s always been easy to imagine how it’s not always possible to communicate audibly. That’s why I don’t use any voice assistant features on my Meta Ray-Bans.

Recently, however, Apple acquired a new startup for $2 billion: Q.ai.

While we don’t know much about this company, we do know one thing for sure – it specializes in machine learning software for translating silent speech input.

Right now, if you want to talk to the voice assistant, it should sound good. Even whispering can be difficult at times for certain voice models, especially if you are not in a completely quiet environment. This new discovery could solve that.

IQ.ai has also researched systems for interpreting small facial movements, enabling them to understand speech without hearing it at all.

If all of this comes together well, I think Apple Glass will be very appealing to a lot of people, and it could make people take voice assistants seriously.

Finish it

Ultimately, I’m sure the Meta Ray-Bans will end up being cheaper than Apple’s AI glasses. However, if Apple is really able to stick to bringing speech recognition technology to the next level, I think most people will be willing to overlook the price difference. While we don’t know a physical release date, it looks like they will be released within the next year or so.

What do you think of Apple’s AI glasses? Are you happy with them, or will you be skipping? Let us know in the comments.

My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:

Follow Michael: X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram