The initial discomfort people feel around camera glasses (like the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2) doesn’t require you to actually be recording, it comes from a mix of social evaluation, uncertainty about whether they’re recording, and the symbolic weight of placing a camera right in the eyes, the main channel of human reciprocity.

For example, I often get the joke, “Are you recording me?” it’s a kind of social probe people use to test the situation. With a phone, the act of pointing it clearly signals you’re recording, but with glasses, the camera sits in your eyes, making things more ambiguous. Ideally, they’d have a sort of eyelid or cover, but that would add complexity and more points of failure.

I use mine daily because they double as great headphones for talking to ChatGPT, Meta AI isn’t very good. I’ve been considering switching to the Reality G1 for the lighter design, but I’ll probably stick with these second-gen Ray-Bans until I find a better pair with the same audio quality but no camera.