Meta Ray-Ban glasses launch marred by multiple demo failures, Mark Zuckerberg left red-faced

At the annual Meta Connect event on Thursday, the tech giant introduced its premium Meta Ray-Ban glasses with a built-in display and the performance-focused Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses. While Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg would have wanted to showcase its lead in the augmented reality space with the new launches, the moment turned into a bit of an embarrassing situation for the company as it had a couple of failed demos during the live stream.

​Meta AI demo fail:

​After unveiling the new Meta Ray-Ban glasses, Zuckerberg connected with food creator Jack Mancuso to highlight how the new glasses could be useful in day-to-day life. Mancuso used the glasses to ask for a recipe for a Korean-inspired steak sauce. Instead of providing step-by-step instructions, the AI on Mancuso's glasses became confused and started giving out-of-sequence directions.

​“You’ve already combined the base ingredients, so now grate the pear,” the AI insisted.

​Mancuso tried to redirect the AI multiple times, but he ultimately blamed the problem on a “messed up Wi-Fi” and handed the stage back to Zuckerberg.

​“The irony of the whole thing is you spend years making technology and then the Wi-Fi on the day catches you," the Meta CEO commented.

​The second time there was a glitch was when Zuckerberg was highlighting the usefulness of the neural wristband, which was unveiled with the Ray-Ban Glasses and is used to detect subtle hand gestures to perform actions like sending messages, controlling media, and accessing Meta AI.

​While elaborating on the new abilities of the Ray-Ban display glasses, Zuckerberg was able to send a message using the wristband to Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. However, when Bosworth called Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO could not pick up the call, with the interface on the glasses not responding to his gestures.

​“That's too bad, I don't know what happened… You practice these things like 100 times, and then, you never know what’s going to happen,” Zuckerberg said on the incident.

​After several attempts at connecting the call, Bosworth eventually walked onto the stage to manage the situation. Meanwhile, the duo once again blamed the issue on a ‘brutal’ Wi-Fi connection.

What can Meta Ray Ban glasses do?

• The Meta Ray-Ban Display's glasses offers a limited 20-degree field of view with a resolution of 600 x 600 pixels.
• Its brightness ranges from 30 to 5,000 nits, providing decent visibility in most outdoor conditions, though it can struggle in the brightest sunlight. Some prescriptions are supported, but only as a built-to-order option.
• The external camera matches past Ray-Ban glasses with a 12-megapixel sensor but falls short of new non-display models, also introduced on September 17, in video resolution and battery life.
• The glasses record 1080p video and last six hours per charge, with the external case providing an additional 30 hours — roughly four full recharges.
• The wristband, called the Meta Neural Band, comes in three sizes and offers 18 hours of battery life.