Meta Touts Accessibility-Relevant Voice Control Improvements, More In Latest Ray-Ban Stories Update
In a blog post on Tuesday, Facebook parent company Meta announced a series of new software updates for its Ray-Ban Stories smart sunglasses.
The post was written by Meta’s Reality Labs team.
“We keep improving [Ray-Ban Stories] with regular software updates and new features. Today we’re excited to share the latest on how we’re making the smart glasses experience better, more powerful, and more intuitive over time,” the Reality Labs group said in the post.
The core of the announcement highlights four areas: smoother integration with phones, faster voice interactions, smarter voice interactions, and new meta-account integration. The first three are the most relevant to accessibility, particularly with regard to voice interaction. Meta says these are some of the “most requested features” by users, allowing them to do more with their voice and less with their smartphone. For example, it’s now possible to start and reply to messages in WhatsApp, Messenger and more just by saying “Hey Facebook, reply”. The software then confirms your creation before sending it to the recipient. Similarly, it is now possible to interact with the stories in a more natural conversational language. Through clever use of artificial intelligence, Meta says the glasses will even “know whether to tag your outgoing message with a period or a question mark based on contextual cues.” Finally, by the end of next month, users will need a Meta account to use their sunglasses, which Meta says is independent of a Facebook or Instagram account. It’s also required for the Facebook View companion app, which allows the glasses to be paired and adjusted from an iOS or Android device.
While it seems obvious to focus energy on developing hands-free controls for wearable technology like sunglasses, the truth is that the features also have a significant impact on accessibility. Assuming a person speaks normally, i.e. doesn’t stutter, but may have some fine motor delays, hands-free operation of the glasses can certainly be a boon to reduce the friction caused by excessive typing or swiping. Likewise, stronger voice control can also result in greater savings in terms of relieving eye strain and fatigue when using the companion app. This might seem like small things at first, but it’s really the small details that end up having the biggest impact in creating a positive user experience for a disabled person. More specifically, it shows that hands-free calling goes beyond mere convenience; Hands-free calling can mean the difference between accessibility and inaccessibility for many people.
See my story from last October on Ray-Ban Stories for more on this, as well as Amazon’s similarly positioned Echo Frames.
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