Meta could be doing a lot to sell to live-streamers with the next iteration of its Ray Ban Stories glasses, if new leaks of new features that are expected to be put in the device go by.

New report from Lowpass reveals the next version of Meta's camera-equipped glasses will allow the wearer to stream video straight to Facebook and/or Instagram, and it will also include a function that lets viewers talk to you while you stream, reveals Lowpass.

According to Lowpass:

"Live streamers will be able to immediately interact with their audience, with comments relayed through audio over the built-in headphones of the glasses. Meta has, in the past, relied on Instagram influencers to help promote Ray-Ban Stories; this new feature could be a pretty big draw for that crowd."

In fact, many streamers now roam the streets with a phone mounted on a hand-held gimbal and comments coming through a device speaker. Comments encourage people to interact because users can tip money for comments that are read by an automated voice, which is likely to get a reply from the streamer.

In public settings, though, this can be a problem because viewers can pay to have outlandish and quite often offensive remarks read aloud. On the other hand, if streamers could maintain that interaction and its related revenue stream via a private speaker whilst still being able to communicate with the world around them, this could be a big draw for streaming stars.

And more and more want to become streamers themselves, emulating their favorite web celebrities as they rack up large followings, and real money, through their live broadcasts. Youngsters brought up on this content will increasingly want to try it out for themselves, which could make this a key application for Meta's smart glasses, if indeed it can enable such a process.

Which seems entirely possible. The current iteration of Ray Ban Stories already allows users to shoot video and listen to music/answer calls through the device, so adding such functionality to streaming seems almost a no-brainer. Technically, this will need some significant development, given the more advanced requirements of continuous video, but could be the thing that ends up shifting much more units, and driving ongoing usage, which has been one of the major failings of the first version of the device.

The first indications are that more than 90% of Ray Ban Stories users have abandoned the product since release, with overall sales coming in well under what Meta had hoped.
The device appears to be something of a prototype for Meta's later full-feed AR glasses, which it is still working on, and is trying to build up a production supply chain that will eventually grow out into that later stage.

But Ray Ban Stories, in itself, may have more applications and this new application can prove to be a major avenue, if Meta succeeds in it.

Meta is also improving privacy tools along with such adaptive volume factors for enhancing audio.

The updates may not make the next stage of camera-equipped glasses a must-have for the majority, as such, but simplified content creation, via direct broadcast streaming and private comments, could be a valuable pathway to increased adoption.